Digimon: Data Storm
by Circeus
Summary: The dynamic nature of the digital world is in peril as powerful beings fight to keep control. 3 helpless humans are pulled in to contend the situation. Will they fulfill their common fate? CHAPTER 6 has been uploaded.
1. Auh zän niman nonätocoh

(Circeus)

Hi there people! Welcome to the new and improved version of Digimon: Data Storm! Better characters! More words! More colors! More blood!

... Okay maybe not that much blood

(Johnny)

You're forgetting about the disclaimer, you dim-witted heap of slum!

(He takes out a megaphone)

Everything Digimon is the property of too many different people to be bothered about listing them here! The Digital node universe, it's specific concept and characters, however, are (c) Jean-Sébastien Girard, go play with your own toys if you don't feel like meeting close with a fire poker!

(Jean-Seb)

That was painful. Well anyway, great thanks to all of those who read the original versions. Greater thanks to those who left reviews, and my greatest thanks to **Shirubie**, **radagast** and **JJriddler**. I couldn't do it without you guys! 

**AUH ZÄN NIMAN NONÄTOCOH - And then I was swept away**

_Several well-known websites have reported massive server breakdowns in the last few weeks. A code of unknown origin seems to clog data transmission between important servers. Most noticeably, Amazon and the entire Google network have been all but impossible to access for the past twelve hours. Many, if not all, of the most popular free hosting networks also went berserk, deleting large batches of user accounts. Geocities, Lycos, Angelfire and Tripods hostees are desperate, for they are unable to even access their sites to check whether their accounts have been terminated. This new catastrophe is striking the dot-com industries at one of... _

A hand reached out and tuned down the sound. It retreated to the mouse and added text to a picture of stylized blooming flowers. Andrea quickly completed the last of her conceptual works to be presented to her boss that afternoon and saved it. At this moment, a yell of annoyance came from the next cubicle. Andrea sighed with a slight smile. Myriam had been grumbling since she'd walked in that morning. Apparently, she was unable to access her email account and it seemed to impact on her productivity considering the litanies of curses she was producing at a quickening pace as the day progressed.

Finally, she pushed herself off the not-so-ergonomic wheelchair and grabbed for a coffee mug abandoned atop the computer's tower. The green frog drawn on it seemed to glower in anger as it was carried to the floor's resting room and rinsed off from an earlier offering to the most ancient tradition of sacrificing acre black drink to forbidden gods in exchange for energy.

Just as she pressed the "espresso" button, a stream of underbreathed curses preceded the thin ungenerous frame of Myriam. The woman plopped herself down on a chair and slammed her own daisy-decorated mug on the table. Andrea closed her eyes, the nagging feeling that the day would end with a headache confirmed. Myriam signed. Her face was solidly framed with 2 locks of hazelnut hair left free from her short ponytail. She jumped when Andrea greeted her.

"Oh, hello. Hadn't noticed you."

Andrea rolled her eyes.

"I see you have a new hairdo," _again_ she added by herself. Myriam had been trying a new one a day since she'd met her new boyfriend.

"I really like the one. I think I'll keep it for a while."

Andrea could barely keep a sardonic snort. Myriam said that six times a week. She looked at Andrea with a thinkful air, but Andrea didn't notice, her mind slowly drifting away. She got up and approached her. As Myriam spoke, her hand started to reach up.

"I reckon you could use some free locks too. That braid looks too strict on you."

The hand approached her head. When Andrea, several seconds too late, realized Myriam was speaking, it was too late. She tried to back away, but a coke distributor and a snack machine were in her way. The fingers brushed her ear and Andrea's eyes closed. Her hand flashed up to clasp around Myriam's wrist. Her eyes opened back and glared at the other woman. Then she looked down as half a mug of cold coffee finished to spill out on the floor.

"Never..."

"Touch your hair, I know." Myriam shook her hand free and rubbed her wrist. "Sorry. I keep forgetting." With a sigh, Andrea recovered her mug. She was suspecting Myriam of slowly trying to wear her defences down.

While she sponged up the liquid with a few paper towels, Myriam took her place. The device gurgled happily at being solicited and filled half her mug with a murky liquid Andrea recognize as its highly personal take on hot chocolate. Myriam left without a word.

Once her mug had been properly washed up, Andrea came back to the machine and pressed the button for espresso again. Overjoyed with use, the machine answered by cascading blistering hot coffee down into her mug. With a satisfied smile, she turned to leave and saw her supervisor walking in. Mark was frantically waving a report around, obviously trying to dry up the orange juice that had been spilt on it. She grinned.

"Heyah, Andrea! How's it going?" he asked her in is usual joyful tone.

"Very well. I'm almost done with the project, I only have to do some test printing," she answered.

Her feet brushed on the carpeted floor as she walked back to her working space. As she advanced between the wall and the cubicle sections, she noticed the sound. Before she could ponder on the weird digital rustling that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, Myriam called for her.

"Andrea!" she said, walking out of her own cubicle. "Something happened when I came back. There was this big flash of light thing from your computer, and now, it's running amok. Sounds like it's formatting its HD."

Andrea cautiously looked inside the walled area, cursing under her breath. Her eyes widened at the technological nightmare displayed on the screen, in place of the expected error message. She would have screamed in frustration weren't it for the fact she had never seen such a bizarre sort of bug. The screen looked like a matrix-style analyzer gone wild, with multicoloured streams of code streaking across it in all directions.

The characters' slight pulse made her nauseous and she looked away for a second. She wanted to close down the screen or at least hide this madness away, but her graphic tablet was in the way. Actually, it floated in the way.

"What the..." the conceptual designer trailed.

She carefully examined what had been a fairly standard Wacom graphic tablet. The stylus was now attached to it with a cord and the previously solid peripheral device now had hinges to fold it in the middle. It seemed a bit smaller too, with nearly an inch wide trimmed away. Most of it's surface now consisted of a grey screen with greenish text barely interrupted by the ingeniously hidden hinges. Several buttons bordered that screen on each side. The device was floating 3 inches over the desk where she'd left it earlier and was encased in a soft glow. At least it didn't give away too much to cliché by slowly rotating.

When she eventually pulled herself to touch it, the physic-violating device floated in her hand, then stopped both glowing and floating. The sudden need to catch the falling peripheral meant that Andrea's coffee mug would again have an unexpected meeting with the floor. She jumped when how coffee spilt on her leg, but quickly reported her attention to the tablet. Trying some buttons caused the words displayed to change. "No messages", "Encrypt", "Hack" and "Data Storage" went by on what seemed to be some sort of menu.

At this point, the computer's rustling stopped abruptly. It took at least ten seconds for Andrea's ears to retransmit the information to her brains, and she carefully glanced back at the screen. The data had stopped moving, but a white area had formed and apparently floated over the code. It's shape seemed vaguely familiar, then realization dawned on her like in a B-movie.

"No way!" she mumbled.

Her mind fumbled around for a solution. Her world was rapidly crumbling away in insanity. Than she gave away.

"Drats, what do I have to loose?" she asked aloud and pressed the tablet against the screen to check if the shapes were as identical as they seemed.

_All lights shut down. Andrea appears to be paralysed, leaning forward as if pressing her "tablet" against an invisible vertical surface. The view rotates around her until it comes to her face, then it zooms into her right eye where a glint is revealed to be herself, still standing in pitch darkness, then she plummets down..._

* * *

Andrea blinked a first time, then a second, then a third just to be sure. Nope, she quite obviously wasn't at work anymore. She felt terribly dizzy and sick. A crashing noise came from behind her. She twirled and managed to distinguish some kind of tropical wilderness behind the mist in her eyes. 

"Okay... No more... coffee for... me," she mumbled before falling to the ground, unconscious.

* * *

Was it a second later? A minute? An hour? She didn't know and, at this point, didn't care either. She had nearly recovered consciousness, that she knew. _All I need to do is open my eyes and I'll be back in front of my computer. I'll realize that I have slept a couple of seconds, then I'll print these works, show them to Mark, and be off for the weekend!_ She smiled. A nice smell of fresh waffles was floating in the air and her smile widened, then her eyes shot open so wide she'd have lost contact lenses had she worn any. 

"WAFFLES?" she exclaimed, abruptly sitting up.

"Yes, miss, waffles, would you like some?" a male voice casually answered from the next room.

The room's wall were made of carefully piled stone forming slightly curved angles at the point they touched the ceiling. She looked back at the bed, which had apparently been made of stone. Fortunately, she had actually laid down on a hay mattress and down pillows. Andrea threw away the colourful quilt she'd been covered with and sit at the edge of the bed, her legs dangling over the edge, for lack of reaching the floor. The sparse furniture comprised a nightstand, a closet (both also made of stone) and a rocking chair with a pile of additional quilts on it. A window was filtering light through what appeared to be bamboo stores.

Andrea heard a sound she related to a waffle-iron opening with a puff of vapour thrown in for flavour. Jumping down, she wobbled out of the room in a dazed state. The next room seemed to be the kitchen. Someone looking like an African shaman from those old cartoons and wearing one gigantic ethnic masks was conscientiously cutting something with a meter-long boomerang-shaped sword whose blade was dripping red blood. This scene would have filled many's definition of "odd" and finally managed to snap Andrea out of her trance.

She nearly jumped out of her skin and yelled.

The masked figure did a good approximation of the same, even adding it's own personal tweak by throwing the sword up. It stuck straight into the stone ceiling. Both kept yelling for a good minute until they almost simultaneously ran out of air. Andrea struck a pose the best she could.

"Don't get near me! I'm a black belt and I'm getting out of here and back to my office!" she threatened. While the part about being a black belt was true, she had some nagging doubts about the going-back-to-the-office part.

Her interlocutor put his hands to his hips. Wasn't it for the mask, she would have sworn he was looking at her amusedly.

"How?" His tone probably confirmed her supposition.

It took her another ten seconds to fully grasp that she didn't know where she was, who she was facing or how she got there. Her brain was definitely _not_ appreciative of espresso today. She groaned and took yet another ten seconds to look over the figure... and really wondered where she actually was.

Short brown fur covered his body, except for his chest and belly, where it was white. Dirty, but not bloody, bandages wrapped around his overgrown wrists. His feet looked more like animalistic clawed paws, the hand similarly sported short pointed claws. Green hair (she could only assume it was hair) was visible behind the red and yellow feather lining the top of the mask. There were little words able to accurately describe the sole actual piece of clothing he or it was wearing. Andrea's cortex registered it as "turf briefs" and decided not to ponder further on the subject.

She started shaking when her brain finally registered the fact this was certainly not a human being, confirmed by the simple fact this... thing... had a tail. The mist was floating back before her eyes. Before she realized it, she was fainting again and the "thing" rushed to catch her before she crashed on the floor.

* * *

It was starting all over again. She just knew it. At least, this time, she knew, or though she knew, a bit of what to expect. The first thing she noticed was the smell of fruits and waffles. _Strawberry... He'd been cutting strawberries._ Her memory somehow functioned, which she decided, after much deliberations, to consider good news. She moaned and her eyes flickered open. Her face was all wet. Then she pulled the clot off her forehead and dropped it on the nightstand. 

"There, you had me worried for a little while, miss," a rather comforting male voice commented.

Andrea decided against looking away. There it was again. The mask, the same blue, green and red mask she had seen previously. She realized there weren't any visible holes in it, but she wasn't going to let that get to her at this point. The... person was sitting on a chair by the bed she was in. She had apparently been keeping watch over her.

"Where am I?" she croaked. God, how her throat hurt. "How long have I been out of it. And who are you?" Her anger was slowly building up.

"Well, I'll reply in order." Amazingly, the mask didn't seem to alter the tone in any way. "You are in Axolotl Node. First time you've been out cold for half an hour. Second time around, you've been out of it for at least two hours now. Apparently all this screaming took its toll on you. And last, but not least, your servant is known as Sepikmon."

"Axol-what? Sepik-what?" she refrained herself from yelling and downed her tone to "computer annoyance" level. Her throat wanted nothing more than to go on strike.

"Sepikmon" He looked closer at her and stated, "You're not from around here."

"That would be the understatement of the century," Andrea deadpanned. "Sepikman, eh? I must still be out cold and I'm dreaming about superheroes or something." The humanoid tilted its head. Andrea considered it likely was its way of staring. Had she not been in such a state she might have tried to focus more on the being's odd body language.

"You _definitely_ are not from here." He seemed to think a moment. "You are from the Real World!"

Andrea glared back at the creature. Talk about the obvious. Of course she was from the real world. Now, whether she was still in that very relative "real world" was another question altogether. Fortunately, some insistent grumbling kept her from snapping at her interlocutor.

"Oh God, I'm hungry," she muttered, pulling off the quilt.

"I'd have guessed so. I had to eat the first serving of waffles after a while, but those are quite fresh." He grabbed a tray on the nightstand and put it before her. What was his name again? Sepikmon looked at her as she stretched her arms and set to devour the food.

Once she was finished, she tried to walk across the room. This time, aside from a slight uncertainty, her legs seemed receptive to orders from her brain. She reached the window on the right-hand side of the room and pulled the shades up.

"Oh, dear, this is not Canada," she murmured for herself.

Large palm trees cast shadows over luxurious vegetation where she recognized yuccas and various orchids. A flat paved road was going straight ahead up to a Mayan pyramid. Small stone buildings lined the street. An organic mechanic from some demented mind walked pass the house she was in. Built from stone and wood parts, it looked like some vehicle driven by two 4-feet tall frogs with a cornet sprouting from their necks. She blinked, then faltered back to the bed and started sobbing.

A hand came to rest on her shoulder.

"There, there. Things can't be that bad, can they?" the humanoid said in a soothing voice. Her sobbing turned to blubbering. "Okay, maybe they can," he conceded, "but I know someone who might very well be able to help you."

Her cries eventually came to a halt and she looked up hopefully.

"Did you just say what I think you said?" She could have sworn he was smiling.

"If you think I just asked you to dance the rumba with a dandelion up your nose, I doubt it," he teased. " But I did say I might know someone who can aid you."

She sniffed and rubbed her eyes. He extracted a handkerchief from a pouch at his side and offered it to her. Andrea took it, thanking him with her eyes and wiped the tear marks off. She got up again, her legs more solid under her, and felt the sudden urge to kick something as her vision blurred another time. When the haze subsided, she looked defiantly at Sepikmon and spoke up.

"Well, let's get on our way." And with that she walked out of the room.

Sepikmon looked at the door in perplexity and smiled. On the bedside, the device the woman had clung to while he carried her to his home gave a short, bright burst of light and its screen turned black. However Sepikmon didn't notice this as he was already walking after Andrea, rapidly catching up to her. He found her standing in the middle of the street, looking around in a dazed state. He gave a deep, low chuckle.

"Don't worry. If anything, Coatlmon is just as surprised at seeing you," he pointed out. His arms widened as he spoke with a tourist guide's tone that caused the woman to giggle, "Welcome to Teocaltintlan, the city of temples."

Andrea noticed the same road she had seen earlier. Further down, twittering discussions surrounded stands. Rectangular stone buildings decorated with intricate carvings bordered the paved plaza that was apparently the centre of the city. A frog nearly her size jumped past her, startling the young woman. Sepikmon chuckled again.

"You'd better get used to it, Miss. You are going to see a lot of things like that." She cringed at that name.

"My name is Andrea." Sepikmon was surprised at the tone she used. It implied that further offences might not necessarily call off physical answers.

* * *

_Can Sepikmon's acquaintance help her go back to the real world? Will her narrow mind be able to cope with this dimension? Will she tastes the peppers? Stay tuned for the next chapter: **Namiquïlo in coatlahtoani**_

**Johnny's linguistic trivia**  
The verb in the title actually means "I was carried away by the river". It is composed of the verbal form _tocoh_, "to be burried", _ä_ from _ätl_, "water" and the prefixes _on-_, meaning "away" and _n(i)-_ marking the first person singular subject.

However the English title got the obvious precedent in the translation process. It's much better than the original attempt, though, which ended up meaning "I have upturned myself".

**Author's note**  
Well, the rewriting process went more smoothly than I expected. You can now expect longer chapters at a slower pace (considering they'll take longer to write).


	2. Namiquïlo in coatlahtoani

(Johnny walks in with a notepad)

Lessee... Disclaimer?

(Jean-Seb waves a large sign reading "We do not own Digimon. Too bad!")

(Johnny adds a checkmark)

Thankies?

(He reads over)

Who wrote it as "Thankies?"

(Wonderboy springs behind the glass-wearing teen, startling him.)

That would be me. Thankies go to **Shirubie**, **Oreo man**, **radagast** and the folks at the Diaries universe message board.

(Johnny sighs and shakes his head)

I guess that's a check...

**NAMIQUÏLO IN COATLAHTOANI - Meeting the Snake Lord**

As they walked down the street toward the pyramid, Andrea could do nothing but look in astonishment as these creatures walked, entered stores, haggled, discussed and argued just like humans. There were plants, birds, insects, frogs, lizards, snakes and even an armadillo. And then there was the vegetation, familiarly tropical, yet unlike anything she had ever seen. Palm trees no higher then a couple feet sprung from the buildings' roofs. Clusters of lilies mottled with red and white proposed a penetrating scent to unpractised nostrils. Large black beans spotted with white were kept into a cage. She looked at her guide quizzically. "Jumping beans," he explained, tapping on the cage lightly. The beans immediately reacted in an explosion of small cracking sound as they hurled themselves at the bars. "Eh, we grow them pretty hardy here." Then some apple-sized peppers kept under a transparent dish-cover caught her eye. "Tepanahuihqueh, 'overachievers'. So spicy you need to wrestle the smell before you can even taste them." She shook her head. That might have beaten wasabi. She wasn't to test food that seemed to be able to burn through quite a few materials, though.

As they made their way toward the pyramid, which seemed to steadily grow more levels as they approached, Sepikmon came to an abrupt halt. "Oh no..." he whispered. Andrea looked for what had put the creature in such a state. A group of heterogeneous beings had gathered tightly around a house. From what she could see, even more where crammed inside, if that was possible. Those standing outside talked softly, often glancing through the windows. Sepikmon advanced and tapped a large humanoid lion on the shoulder. It turned around and looked at him with a mournful expression.

"Eztepoztli!" he exclaimed.

"So, Tiyahcatzin, it is it?" he asked in concern. The large being averted Sepikmon's eyes in a surprising display of sorrow.

"It seems so. Her wound has infected. Sharmamon reckons she's at her worst, so we came to give her our last homage." Sepikmon's head hung down now. Andrea couldn't help herself and rubbed his shoulder.

"Did you know her?" she asked softly.

"If I knew her? Everybody knew Toxochiton!" he exclaimed. His legs gave away and he sat down. "Such a sweet Piyomon. And now she's leaving us." As he spoke, the sniffs and cries that had already been present in the background became more powerful. A flurry of small butterfly flew through the window. Their twinkling wings caught Andrea's eyes and she remarked they hadn't any true feature. They seemed made of pure light.

"There she goes." Tiyahcatzin said, just as the butterfly that had landed on his extended finger dissolved away. Sepikmon gave a small sniff and got up as another one disappeared in his hair.

"We have to go now," he half-cried. As they walked away, Andrea kept looking behind her at the group of dispersing creatures. She finally gathered the courage to speak up.

"What was that about?" Sepikmon looked at her. She could only guess what he looked like under the mask, but she assumed he would have been glassy-eyed.

"When a Digimon dies, their data transforms into these butterflies you saw and returns to the Data Streams. However, parts of it can be absorbed by the Digimon standing nearby," he explained. She gurgled a disgusted noise.

"Ew, that's morbid," Andrea herself was surprised at what she'd said.

"Not at all. It is just the way it works in this world. It is an honour to accompany a friend in their last moments. And I am certain Piyomon was happy to see all those she knew there." Sepikmon countered, "It's not like you humans who burry your dead. Now that's unhygienic. A dying Digimon knows that those he loves will always keep him in their hearts. Some will acquire a little of Piyomon's natural grace, or her amazing cooking skills."

"I see." Andrea tried to understand, but it still felt like opportunism to her. _He did have a point about hygiene, though_, a part of her mind pointed out. Another question surfaced before she could dwell on it. "Digimon? What is that?" Sepikmon seemed a bit lost in his thoughts as he caught a plant-like Digimon who had tripped and helped her back up.

"We are Digimon. It means Digital monsters. We inhabit the Digital World, made of the Nodes connected through the Data Streams. This is Axolotl, where we speak ätlahtolli, the language of water..." he recited in a daze. But new questions overrun her and she interrupted the Digimon.

"And why do you call her Piyomon? You said everyone knew 'Toxochiton'," came the query.

"Her nickname. 'Our little flower'. You normally call a Digimon by his name. But when you know someone more intimately, you can call them by their nickname. You do not usually refer to them using it, though. It's actually pretty complex. You can call me Eztepoztli if you want. Means Bloody Sword," Sepikmon answered, still in his dazed state. Andrea shuddered and, glancing at the large sword hanging on the Digimon's back, wondered for a moment whether that was a good sign. She mastered herself.

"Why do they call you that?" she asked Sepikmon, who was now leading her a couple of steps.

"Excuse me? Are you talking to me?" The figure turned to look at her. His mask was decorated differently. Andrea immediately noticed it wasn't the same Sepikmon and stood dumbfounded for a second. _Oh,_ that's_ what he meant_.

Knowing that, unfortunately, didn't tell her were Eztepoztli was. She looked frantically around and finally spotted her guide mechanically walking away. Sepikmon had turned in an alley without her noticing him. She shoved her way through the crowd until she reached him and grabbed his arm to stop him.

"Uh, what?" he mumbled as his spirit was brought back down to earth. She had forgotten her question in her panic.

"We were going to meet someone who could help me go back to the real world."

Sepikmon looked uncertain for a second, then regained his composure.

"Right. This way please," he bowed like a cartoony steward.

They had now reached the pyramid by its eastbound side. No door was visible but a stairway to the top of the pyramid, which seemed to have gained yet another couple levels. Her eyes widened.

"You mean we have to climb all that? No funicular?" He got up on the first step, which was, unfortunately, on the same scale as the bed, so she'd actually have to climb on it.

"We might have all day, but I do think you'd prefer to be up there as soon as possible," he commented.

"And I thought the stairs to Saint Joseph's Oratory were bad," she sighed. Her hands raised to rub her temples, but she noticed and stopped in mid-movement. _I think I'm developing a new mannerism. Probably not a sign of mental stability._ Finally giving in, she climbed onto the first step. "Well, then, let's get this stair rolling," she added, going for the second.

Then the stair actually started moving with her caught in mid air. Her arms flailed around for a few horrible seconds until one came to rest on the large stylized statue of a lion. She chose to ignore the fact there were no lions in Meso-America to be made into statues and just stood there stunned as the steps moved up the side of the temple in the grinding of stones. She turned and shot a nasty look at her partner.

"You could have warned me!" Her ears were whistling with anger now.

"I expected you could take care by yourself now," he retorted. She huffed and turned away.

The wind grew stronger as the stairway rose, flapping her clothes against her and occasionally shoving her braid around. As they elevated, she could see farther, notably how straight the roads where in the whole city. Low buildings like white mushrooms in a badly kept lawn sprouted here and there in the middle of surprisingly colourful gardens. A few flying creatures hovered above the streets. Some of them, she noticed, should not have been able to fly. But then, she should not have been transported to Meso-America by pressing her graphic tablet to her computer screen. As she dwelled on these thoughts, the mechanism came to a halt and to the top platform.

"Welcome to the Palace." Andrea jumped and almost fell off the building for the second time that day, only to have her wrist snatched by Sepikmon. "Please leave any weapon in the antechamber. Do not forget the offering to the Gods," the voice continued, undeterred.

"Thanks Shiisamon," the warrior-like digimon said, as if such things were a daily occurrence in his life. Andrea tried to walk looking at the white and golden statue and ended up tripping on her own foot.

"You mean, he was a..." she uttered.

"Of course he was a Digimon too. He's just paid to stay there without moving most of the day," Sepikmon stated.

They entered the room. The walls were made of massive stones piled without mortar. Andrea wondered for a moment if there was enough room between them to slip a strand of hair. In the wall opposite them niches had been carved in various sizes and shapes. Sepikmon reached behind his back and brought the sword to his front. He got on his knees and reverently saluted the statue of a winged human with a deer's head in the corner of the room. He then delicately placed his sword in an oblong niche off the middle of the wall. Reaching to his pouch, he extracted a small fragment of veined green stone Andrea recognized as malachite and placed it alongside the sword in the niche. He then turned around and motioned for her to do the same. She stared at him, but he tensed and she relented. _When in Rome do as the Romans do._ She knelt before the statue, joined her hands in front of herself and bowed. She then slowly got up without looking back at it. She glanced at Sepikmon who nodded his approval. And motioned for the wall.

"Uh..." she trailed off. "I'm afraid I don't have anything that could qualify as an offering to the gods: I left my purse at work." Sepikmon looked a bit distressed at this.

"We can't leave the room as is. It'd be sacrilegious!"

"Mind you, not being of your religion, or even from this world, I think this could hardly be considered sacrilegious," Andrea pointed out, a bit miffed. Sepikmon raised a hand under his mask and she assumed he would be nudging his chin.

"I guess you've got a point. We'll decide of this later." He motioned for her to follow him as he went into a darkened corridor.

Horizontal slits occasionally pierced the walls, allowing light rays to light up the area. The corridor ended in an archway. A soft, uniform light hid any vision from beyond it. As they approached, what she had thought to be statues appeared to be two nightmarish creatures. Demonic thin bodies covered in metallic bends were attached to pairs of angelic wings on their back and heads. The one on the right was black; the other was white. They had no visible eyes. Nearly 2 meters-tall (compared to her guide's almost normal size), they towered menacingly over any visitor.

"Everything is more than you know," the dark one greeted them.

"And everything is less then you think," the second completed.

"Aztapiltictecuacuilli, Tlilpahtictecuacuilli, shall you let us pass, for this guest seeks to speak with Santiramon," he said. It sounded quite official.

"What do you seek from the Snake Lord?" the dark one responded. Andrea realized he was talking to her. She tried her best not to stutter.

"I..." she almost choked under their gaze, despite the absence of any visible eye. "I seek help in returning to my world." They looked at her as though they were seeing right through her soul and stepped aside.

"You may enter," a deeper, hissing voice came from the inside of the room. Andrea shuddered. The voice had a strangely appealing quality. Closer to the rustling of a book's turned pages or the rubbing of silk than the actual hissing of air through a hole too thigh in one's eardrums. She crossed the barrier of light.

"There she goes, there she goes," the white creature commented flatly.

"Well, I'm gone too," Sepikmon stated. He went through before the surprised creatures could keep him.

* * *

Andrea entered an immense room. She didn't lose any precious mental resources wondering how such a large room could fit in the small construction atop the pyramid. The ceiling started (or ended, depending on one's point of view) at least a dozen meters above her head and provided a welcome shortcoming to walls covered with engraved glyphs. Coiled against the wall on what she could only describe as a ceremonial platform, a massive snake loomed over the few persons present. It acknowledged and beckoned her with a movement of its head. A few short orange lizards she guessed to be servants wore simple red loincloths and stood motionless against the wall. Completing the vision was a large machine her sight described to her brains as a walking clock from which a humanoid shape holding a hammer sprouted. Her brains dismissed the description and proceeded to shut down. But before they could complete the process, a figure appeared that brought a much sought for touch of reality. A man. Not quite the hero in shining armour, more like a middle-aged man who could have used more exercise, but her brain nonetheless latched onto the fugacious figure. 

"Great. We lost her again," Sepikmon deadpanned as she collapsed in the human's arms.

"She fainted," he stated the obvious, granting himeye rolls from all the digimons. The three short lizards rushed to help set her down. One of them ran out of the room and came back accompanied by two walking plants holding cushions and a bottle of salts. Soon after, Andrea was again more or less conscious, her eyelids fluttering like jell-o in the middle of an earthquake.

"She had a difficult day. Getting sent to another dimension looking like nothing she knows, discovering strange creatures, and I haven't yet told her about the prophecies," Sepikmon explained. Andrea's eyes popped out and she jumped up so furiously she knocked down one of the servant.

"_What prophecies?_" she exclaimed.

"Oh my, we are not getting anywhere like this," the great snake pointed out.

With a wave of his tail, the servants were shooed away. Andrea got up. The creature locked his eyes in hers for a second. She frowned defiantly and asked again, calmer.

"What prophecies?"

"If I might. You are?" He asked politely. Something in the back of Andrea's mind warned her it wasn't quite a question. She bowed respectfully.

"Andrea Tamikane." He bowed in turn.

"May your skin never dry. I am Coamehtlahtoani Santiramon." The snake lord sighed and uncoiled, pointing at undecipherable engraving and the figure of an Asian dragon on the wall.

"When the Digital World created itself as the outlet of excessive data from your world, there was but a single, all powerful digimon: Qinglongmon. When the world divided into nodes, he clearly saw that his mere presence upset the balance of power and threatened this world with destruction. Thus he cast himself away into the 'Great Delete', the oblivion beyond our universe. Behind him he left, circling Infinity Mountain of File Island, the 12 Digi-Cores, the digital destiny. They contain prophecies announcing the times of threat to this world. Twice before saviours from the human world were announced by the cores, and twice before they saved the Digital Word. Now your presence, a mere week after the arrival of Derek, announces a new era of trouble to this world."

Andrea had actually drifted out before the white snake had completed it's second sentence, her mind moving back to the strangely enrapturing engraving. Her wanderings were enhanced by the strangely hypnotic quality of the creature's voice. A shred of self-conscience knocked on her mind room at the mention of the other human's name and her reverie crashed down with the usual dazed look. Santiramon didn't appeared to be very pleased at the woman's reaction.

"So your name's Derek, right?" She examined the man. And extended her hand. "Andrea Tamikane." They shook hands.

"Derek Mason"

"Időmenekül Clockmon," the humanoid figure atop the machine bowed too.

"Eztepoztli Sepikmon."

"I'm here," Derek continued, "because a month ago, (Andrea was puzzled at this remark) the sixth core opened when I came to File Island and I've been attempting to decrypt it ever since. Yesterday, I finally managed to do so, but the prophecy is written in an old form of ätlahtolli, so I came to Teocaltintlan to have it translated."

He took a handheld computer hanging from his shirt pocket and pressed a few controls. A hologram shot up with elaborate scripting, not dissimilar to the one Santiramon had pointed earlier. Santiramon turned toward Sepikmon.

"I think this falls within your competence, doesn't it?"

Sepikmon approached the connection and started speaking.

"_The knot of water will be stormed. Digimon will disappear in the land of the night bird. The Flower Creator will stream in to connect the Wall Builder and the Masked Fighter. She will stream out once the Butterfly has been saved._"

Andrea tried to contain a curse.

"What kind of nonsense is _that_?"

"Well, Qinglongmon's prophecies aren't exactly recognized for clarity, but I do believe the 'Masked Warrior' designates me," Sepikmon said. Andrea rolled her eyes.

"Really?" she asked sarcastically.

"The 'Knot of water' must be Axolotl node, " Santiramon added. "Parts of Teocaltintlan were reconfigured in a data storm generated by your arrival."

"Derek, isn't a 'mason' a journeyman doing brickwork?" Clockmon though aloud.

"Actually, I though it made reference to the Firewall," the heads gravitated slowly toward Andrea, in obvious expectative.

"What?" She couldn't bear it anymore. These people were completely crazy. "Do you really expect me to take part into that guessing game of 'what if's?" she scowled with great annoyance. "I am just some graphic designer, for God's sake! All I want is to get back to my good ol' cubicle, print my last project and..." The sentence died a painful death on her lips.

"Are you OK?" Sepikmon enquired. Andrea looked like she was just told she had a deadly disease.

"It's a project for CTV's latest series. It's called 'Flower Power'." Derek cracked a smile. She pouted in response.

"As for the 'Land of the night bird', I am stuck," Santiramon said. Andrea raised her eyebrows.

"A night bird? An owl?" she pointed out.

"Owlmon would be too arrogant to allow such information from getting out of his prefecture," Santiramon sighed. "He came just short of arresting someone for putting an end to a band of pirate's streak in Moyotlan."

"Actually," Sepikmon countered, "Toxochiton Piyomon came to Teocaltintlan to report raising numbers of mysterious disappearances. She was attacked on her way here."

"Oh."

"Wait a minute," Andrea panicked, "does that mean I can't get back to Toronto until I've saved that 'Butterfly' mentioned in that blight of a prophecy?"

"Err... Most likely," Sepikmon sheepishly answered.

"Oh bugger." She palmed her forehead.

* * *

_What is going on with Owlmon? Will Andrea survive the grinder? And who's that rabbit? Get (or not) answers to all these questions by readin chapter three: **Ïnäl tomöztlayö ötëchhuïcac tepëtitech**!_

**Johnny's linguistic trivia**  
You might notice Clockmon's nickname looks very different from those mentionned so far. That's because it's not Nahuatl, but Hungarian. It's from _az idő menekül_ "time flees", an adaptation in Hungarian of "tempus fugit".

As for the two scarily long names of the Gargoylemon gards, they simply mean "very white statue" and "very dark statue", but they're more titles than actual nichnames.

**Author's note**  
Well, well, I originally wanted to wait a bit before I posted this second revised chapter, but I realized ffNET only reacts to new chapters. I might as well have deleted the whole thing and reuploaded it, uh? Oh well. Now you've got two chapters for the price of one!


	3. Ïnäl tomöztlayö ötëchhuïcac tepëtitech

(Jean-Seb is taking some time off on the couch.)

Welcome welcome to this third rewritten chapter of Digimon:Data Storm. If you already read the original version, you will find little actual new material, but if not, then I'm talking for nothing.

(Johnny springs away from behind the couch and bops him up the head.)

What an idiot. Well, anyway, Digimon is not ours, no matter how hard we've tried. Please refrain from stealing other material from the Digital Nodes universe.

(Jean-Seb pushes him away)

Oh, and before you leave us, We'd like to thank **Shirubie**, **radagast** and **Oreo man**. Your help is priceless!

**ÏNÄL TOMÖZTLAYÖ ÖTËCHHUÏCAC TEPËTITECH - He lead us to our future by the mountain**

"Well, I do know a butterflymon in Patläninitlan. He's a blacksmith." Sepikmon tried to reassure her, but she just palmed her forehead with her other hand.

"My lord, would you happen to be aware of unauthorized data streams in Axolotl node?" Derek asked out of the blue.

"What do you mean, Cohuatzintli? You think the missings could have been taken away?" Santiramon asked, intrigued.

"Actually..." the man's head dropped. "No I didn't think of that," he mumbled. "But as stream monitor I detected some very weird energy signature about a week ago." Santiramon raised a brow.

"Wouldn't that be yesterday's data storm?" Derek's face darkened.

"Oh right. Temporal entropy."

"Just when I started to respect you, you come out with some undecipherable jargon." Andrea tried to keep her brain from melting from the ambient surrealism. "Computer technicians. What in heaven and hell is that 'entroprise' about?" Derek's face took on the fine carnation of a radish.

"Sorry. Old habits die hard. Basically, the bigger a node is, the more rapid its timeflow is compared to smaller nodes and the real world. I've calculated time in HTTP is about twelve time as rapid as in Axolotl," Derek explained.

"Well, _that_ explain why you were on File Island a month ago, but I landed here only a week after you."

Derek reached for the device that has produced holograms earlier and pressed a few control. An holographic map sprung up this time. Andrea recognized in the middle the temple at the centre of the city. A zoom out revealed forests and villages surrounded the capital. A part of the city lit up.

"Moloyantlan, you said, right?" Derek asked, his finger moving on the touch-sensitive icons.

"No," Sepikmon corrected him. "Moyotlan. Owlmon is prefect of Moyotlan. That's to the west." He pointed. An area of forest surrounding a few villages and cultivated areas lit.

"Hum... A day's walking distance." Clockmon estimated.

"2 and a half, actually. The road is not quite straight: it follows the river and it go round Ololtepetontli." Sepikmon pointed a large, round mound the river wedged around. A red, tortuous line shot from the temple to a city in the yellow area. A label popped up: Ahuamoloyan pop 2629.

"That's the prefecture seat, right?" Derek asked. Another place lit in the forest, causing the Moyotlan indication to fade to its limits, with a second label: Patläninitlan, pop 261.

"Correct. If there's one place we can get pointers, it's there," Sepikmon.

"I'll have messengers sent to Owlmon immediately," Santiramon said, calling the servants back in.

Feeling mostly unconcerned with the route they were taking, Andrea had taken the time to examine the device Derek used. She eventually recognized a PalmOne handheld of a similar model to Mark's.

"How did you get it to do these kind of things?" she exclaimed. "That's impossible!" Derek and Sepikmon, who had been discussing different means of transportation, jumped out of her way. He seemed to look at it in a novel way now.

"Actually, I don't think it's still the exact thing I used to have for on-field work. Mugen Dramon called it a D-Coder. Apparently, it allows humans to travel between the real and the digital world." Andrea looked closer at the screen, deciphering some glyphs and a menu with several options: "Messages", "Data storage", "Encoding". It suddenly felt familiar.

"No way!" she barely managed not to drop the device.

"What?"

"My... My graphic tablet got, it got all weird and it had the same menu. Then, then when I pressed it, pressed it on the computer screen..." she stuttered. Derek looked dreamy

"Wow... Can I have a look at it?" he implored. Andrea shrugged.

"I don't have it with me. No idea where it got."

"I do think we left it at my home. You were in quite a hurry," Sepikmon helped out. Derek stared at them for a moment, then Clockmon and him exchanged an ominous glance.

"What?" Andrea and Sepikmon chorused.

"The D-Coder is one of this world's most potent device! Not a good idea to leave it lying around like this!" Derek yelled. He turned toward the digimon lord. "I am deeply sorry my lord, but we have to go now."

With that, he whirled and, followed by Clockmon, ran out of the room. Andrea looked bemusedly after him, and rubbed her temples for the form. This journey promised battle, toil and trouble. At least if she was to take care of it.

She eventually ran after Derek and Clockmon. Sepikmon did too, but as they crossed the entrance, he tried to stop abruptly, only managing to slip while whirling on himself and eventually take off in the other direction.

"My sword, I left my sword in the antechamber!" he cursed.

Andrea blinked at him. When she turned back, she saw another stairway going down, with the human and the digimon midway. Then she saw the slope on each side. A nice straight slope with a track for flowing water. And she smiled.

Derek wasn't sure what that was. Apparently, something vaguely feminine (but she wasn't sure, for it was very blurry) had just slided past them at great speed with a yell of glee and calls of "Beware, pedestrians!"

Andrea found herself giggling like there was no yesterday, sprawled on her back in a patch of grass, and looking up at the inquisitive face of Derek.

"Hi," she said.

Then a hand picked and helped her up.

"I think that was too much for her," Sepikmon proposed. "I could slap her out of it, but I'm not too sure it's a good idea."

"Yeah, you might break her neck or something," Derek retorted. With that he slapped the giggling woman apparently busy with catching a bumblebee the others couldn't see.

She punched him in the jaw.

"Don't. You. Ever. Do. That. Again," she warned. Then she took a deep breath. "I think we were panicking and getting to Sepikmon's house just now, right?" Derek rubbed his pained jaw.

"Right."

Then he and Clockmon sprinted out of view again. Andrea and Sepikmon sighed and took after them.

Around the corner was the busy market that was the centre of Teocaltintlan. Fortunately, the thick crowd meant Derek and his companion had left an obvious trail.

"Derek, wait!" Sepikmon called.

"We don't have time to wait!" Derek answered, not bothering to look back.

"But you don't know where my house is!" Sepikmon countered.

Derek turned back, still running, which proved to be a bad idea, as usual in such cases, since he collided with a cart full of pumpkins pushed by a very large green caterpillar. The orange (actually, striped orange and red) projectiles flew everywhere.

"O! Xitëitta! Ticän tequitïhua!" the insect yelled at Derek as the human attempted to remove his hand from inside one of the fruits. Clockmon provided a quick solution my smashing the troublesome piece of food. For some reason, Andrea knew exactly what the creature just said ("Hey, Watch out! People are trying to work here!"), though she had no idea how it had said it. She picked up one of the fruits and hauled it back in the cart.

"My house is that way," Sepikmon pointed with his finger.

"That means we were headed in the right direction! Why did you stop us?" Clockmon protested. Sepikmon's shoulders dropped in despair. Andrea chuckled, helping the large insect to place a particularly large fruit back in the cart.

"Don't we want to recover my D-Coder?" she asked, cutting the burgeoning argument with the clippers of common sense.

"Oh, right, quick." Sepikmon led the way.

Through a few streets and after a couple more minutes of running that left both Andrea and Derek exhausted, they finally reached the cubic stone structure that was Sepikmon's house. Andrea vaguely remembered the floorplan. She looked for the window to the room where she had laid down. No trace of the device. Sepikmon had meanwhile rushed through the house, looking everywhere.

"Cuitlatlahcalqueh! It's not there!" he cursed.

As Derek was about to say something, he was interrupted by a beeping sound. He snatched his own D-Coder.

"I'm picking a signal! I think it's your D-Coder!" he exclaimed.

"What makes you think that?" Andrea asked dubitatively.

"Well, it's not a power signature I've ever seen before, it's moving, and it's coming from just out of town," Derek explained.

Then the small hologram gave out a bright flash, and everyone was blinded for several seconds.

"What was _that_?" Andrea asked, rubbing her tearful eyes.

"It was activated! Or rather it discharged energy to activate something... I think."

"That's... Not a good sign, is it?" Sepikmon asked.

"Probably not."

Having recovered enough sight by now, Derek looked at the holographic map again.

"Weird... It's moving on the road to Ahuamoloyan."

Sepikmon looked at the map.

"Our thief is moving fast. But we can move faster."

Andrea could almost hear a grin. The group returned near the marketplace and approached a small stand in front of a fenced space. Wooden machinery was housed behind. The stall announced for everyone to see "Ähuïleh Agumon - nehneminimeh". The owner was an orange lizard about half her height. It was identical to the slaves she had seen in the throne room, save for several necklaces of large worked wood rings and feathers covering most of his chest.

"Hey! Eztepoztli! what can I do for you?" the lizard jumped down from a stool almost as tall as him.

"Hi there, Ähuïleh. I need a walker. It's urgent." The lizard rushed around to his side. Andrea noticed additional bracelets at his ankles. The various pieces of wood produced constant little clopping sounds as he moved.

"Oh... You'll tell me everything, right?" he asked excitedly, opening a door in the fence that ressembled a corral more than anything else. The machines lined inside looked like the hybrid between a clockmaker's nightmare and a wart. "So, what do you want? A jumper? A bumper? A mover?" Agumon continued.

"A nacaxacualoani."

Sepikmon pointed with his hand. Andrea looked and her eyes widened. The thing had 10 legs crisscrossing each others, powered by a series of large cogwheels that extended from the top and bottom of the machinery. If she hadn't known it was made for walking, she'd had though it was a giant meat grinder. Ähuïleh AGumon grinned at his friend's request.

"Oooohh... A meat grinder, you know what you want!" Andrea's blood froze.

"That thing is actually called a 'meat grinder'? No way I'm boarding that!" she protested.

"But it's perfectly safe! I use them regularly myself!" the small lizard protested, obviously insulted, "and besides it's the most rapid mean of transportation you'll find!"

"I am _not_ getting on something that looks like kitchenware."

"Actually, I do not exactly appreciate the prospect of sitting on this thing either," Derek piped in. Sepikmon sighed.

"Very well, that'll be a teppachihuini, then." Sepikmon noticed the suspicious looks the two humans gave him and pointed at an ant-like machine. "A 'dust mover'."

Agumon handed him one of the wooden disks from his necklace. Sepikmon bowed and they boarded the machine. At first Andrea had problems with the rope-ladder, but not as worse as Derek, who completely ensnared himself in it, requiring an amused Agumon's help to put him out of his predicament. Eventually, they all managed to board the fairly large platform on the front of the machine. Sepikmon walked to what looked like an instrument panel. A round depression marked its centre and he inserted the disk carvings-down into it. It turned a bright green. When he rotated it clockwise, it started to produce a slightly pulsing light. It reminded Andrea of her computer's screen.

And the machine started to walk.

* * *

Two hours later, Andrea could not stand it anymore. Her lungs tried to go out her nose every other minute and her eyes were tearing so much she wanted to rip them off her face. And she was covered with sticky dust and sweat from head to toe.

"Stop it! Stop it! I give up!" she yelled over the racket produced by the machine. Eztepoztli looked at her sternly.

"At least the nacaxacualoani goes too fast for the dust to really be a problem. And we barely gained any terrain, since you're always stopping us to wash your eyes," he said as she jumped down and ran to the nearby river, obviously not listening to him.

"It's that earth road," she said as she splashed water on her face, "Don't you ever pave roads around here?"

"No, we use nacaxacualoanimeh," Eztepoztli muttered spitefully in her back. She didn't hear him. Looking around, she noticed they had started the long way round the mountain, who now stuck out of the forest right in front of them. An idea started to form and she ran back to the teppachihuini.

"Hey, I just though about something! If we use the walker to follow the river on the other side of Ololtepetontli, we should be able to catch up to the thief, and not even be bothered with the dust!" She pointed to the river that disappeared between the trees on the left-hand side of the road.

"That sounds like a good idea," Eztepoztli approved.

"No, it isn't!" another voice interjected. They looked around and saw a grey humanoid rabbit standing by the river, right next to the place where Andrea had washed her eyes. It might as well have been standing there the whole time without her even noticing it. It was leaning forward with both hands on a stick and slowly moving back and forth. It's paws sported claws longer than Andrea's own fingers and a fang protruded form the left of his superior lip.

"And why's that?"

"Because that would make you go straight through Chacaltzontloc, the wild Aruraumon's village, and they're really cranky these days. Mating season. Not only will this land you in a world of trouble, but you'll never see that D-Coder again. However, if you keep on this road, you'll encounter minimal resistance and the thief will actually give it up personally," it answered, as if the answer was obvious.

"And you know that because?" Clockmon asked.

"That's Gazimon, the hermit. He lives in the mountain and he's a seer. Or at least that's what people say..." Eztepoztli begun to explain.

"But personally, you think I'm a fraud. Right?" the newcomer ended his sentence, leaving the larger digimon speechless. "At any rates, can I come with you? I have affairs to tend to in Ahuamoloyan, or rater, Owlmon will have affairs to tend with me. And you are going to need my help. Trust me on that one." He approached as if he was going to board the weekly bus.

"And what if we refuse?" Andrea answered as he reached her. He started to climb the rope-ladder until their heads were on the same level.

"The idea didn't even cross my mind," he said, grinning.

Andrea rolled her eyes. The creature continued his nimble ascension and she climbed after him. All eyes were on him as he stepped on the platforn and settled down, his stick across his knees. Sepikmon wasn't sure this was a good idea, but the creature seemed mostly harmless, and if they could be of service...

"By the way," Gazimon turned at Andrea as she reached the platform, "There are protective mask in that trunk your friend is sitting in front of."

Andrea rushed to the wooden box as the walker started moving again.

* * *

"Of course I could, but that wouldn't do any good."

"Could you please explain that over?"

The discussion had been dragging on for several minutes, and Andrea had to admit she was rapidly losing ground to confusion. To top it off, the small digimon was being a smartass.

"I do, but it's always so funny."

"Do you realize how annoying this is?"

"Hey! No need to get rude!" he cut her before she could add anything.

"Raaaargh!" she yelled and clasped her hands on her head in disgust. Gazimon turned toward Derek.

"Exactly, that's my fate for not living up to my duties as a priest," he anticipated.

"So you're saying you are chased by priests who want to sacrifice you?"

"Okay, I think I've made my point enough."

"And for the luv'a'pete, please stop doing that!" he waited a few seconds. "Thanks."

Andrea went to sit by Sepikmon, seething.

"He might not be a fraud, but he can be one annoying asshole," she grumbled. Eztepoztli shook his head. Andrea had to jump to avoid receiving the edge of his mask in the jaw.

"Ontlachiyani lives both in the past and the future. Can't really blame the guy for having a less than firm grasp on the present," he stated calmly. She stared at him.

How could these people get that jaded about things? Just an hour earlier, Sepikmon didn't trust the rabbit digimon, and now, he went on and called him by his nickname.

Andrea jumped away as the mentioned one suddenly tapped her on the shoulder with his stick.

"You know, that isn't my real nickname at all, actually. I've abandoned my priest's nickname a long time ago. Some call me 'Huecayomatini', others prefer 'Ontlachiyani', but I like 'Huehuenpol'." Some of the feathers on Eztepoztli's head moved.

"'Old fart'?" Gazimon chuckled at Andrea's equally quizzical look.

"It's a long story, but if I start now, we're going to be interrupted and you'll never see through the whole thing." Andrea didn't even attempt to contradict him.

"I'll settle for hearing it later."

_I've seen through enough things today for the rest of my life_, she added for herself. She had apparently been transported straight into the Internet and now she had to save some butterfly from who knows what in order to go back, assisted in that task by a computer nerd, an ape-man with a mask as tall as her, a walking clock and a precognitive rabbit-man. She felt the beginnings of a headache creeping up to her. Than two hands landed on her shoulders and started skillfully massaging away a bit of her stress.

"I know how that is," Derek said.

That was too much. Andrea's accumulated anger burst away. She turned back and yelled.

"NO YOU DON'T! You've been perfectly in your element all along! You haven't been sent from your office straight into a rainforest and told around by creature right out of children's shows what you were supposedly fated to do! You have absolutely NO idea how that is!" Gazimon gave her a stern look.

"I've expected more strength from you. You've been chosen to save this world and you actually _resent_ it?" The creature was obviously troubled.

"Perfectly! And what if I do?" she shot back.

"If you really do, than you don't know what it is to witness a thousand year's ritual sacrifices," Gazimon throttled out. "How it is to realize you can never rise up to what you've lived for all your life," he spurted. "To realize that everything you've lived for was built on the blood of countless innocent lives!"

As he shot that last call, the confidence he'd been dripping so far evaporated. Faucets long closed opened up under the pressure and flowed seemingly endless cascades of tears. He collapsed face down and started sobbing confusedly. Andrea, Derek and Clockmon looked at each other for a second, than Andrea reflexively knelt and took him in a tight embrace, slowly rocking back and forth. The Gazimon didn't react, letting himself be moved like a rag doll.

"There, there, let it all get out," she murmured in his ear.

Without listening, the grey-furred creature tried to sniff the cries away, but only managed to choke on his own tears. Andrea instinctively started to rub his chest, oblivious to the fact everybody was now looking at her.

"You can't let it eat you up," she continued. "Let it all flow away."

"NO!" the broken-down creature somehow managed to yell. "I can't let myself do this!" Andrea was crying too now. She spun him around. Huehuenpol didn't resist.

"WHY? Why can't you?" she yelled back. He dropped his head. A soulless voice came from his mouth.

"Because there is too much at stakes."

She was going to ask what stake could be more important than his own sanity when she noticed the teppachihuini had stopped and a yell came from the road.

"Ohocelotzintli!"

Ohocelotzintli Gazimon looked up and she noticed an air of determination she wouldn't have expected earlier from the glinting, mischievous eyes. Hers remained fixed on an invisible point of the board.

"And then there is them."

* * *

_Who're "them"? Why won't Gazimon let himself be helped? And what's the deal with that nickname? How far will Andrea go to protect her hair? Get answers to at least some of these in the next chapter: **Tëahmän tönalmiquiliztli**_

**Johnny's linguistic trivia**  
It seems that classical Nahuatl didn't have a specific word for "future". One of the expressions often used is "in ömpa titztihuih", which means "where we will go to look". Unfortunately, using that expression meant that my chapter title was one letter too long. With the help of my resident Nahuatl expert (Yes, that's you Radagast!), I eventual crafted the expression "ïnäl tomöztlayö", meaning "beyond our tomorrows", a very nice expression with the advantage of being short enough to fit the form, yay!

**Author's note**  
I'd like to think this chapter, or at least the part of it that originaly constituted the first half of chapter 6, has been strongly rewritten, but that's not the case. There are still quite a lot of little adjustements that were made, but they are much less important than in the first two chapters. Fortunately, chapter 4 will start to introduce some _actual_ new material, so don't lose hope!


	4. Tëahmän in tönalmiquiliztli

(Jean-Seb enters from left-hand) 

Why, WHY didn't anybody tell us we accidentally uploaded chapter 3 twice? This is Digimon:Data Storm, not anything official, so the trademark belongs to somebody else, leave us alone!

(Johnny enters from left-hand stage, trying to sort through a pile of paper)

Oh, and we need to thank... Where did I put it?

(He extracts a single sheet, causing the rest to fall down.)

Oh, right, all the thanks in the world to **Shirubie**, **radagast** and **JJriddler** a.k.a. **Oreo man**.

**TËAHMÄN IN TÖNALMIQUILIZTLI - Troublesome sunburn**

"And then there is them."

He shook himself free of her uncertain grasp and walked to the banisters lining the front of the board.

"I am here, Tönalmicqui." An orderly row of seven child-level digimon, all wearing elaborate feather headdresses, were standing behind a tall, fiery and smirking lizard.

"Well, well. Look what we've got there. Seems like you finally accepted your fate. I'd have though the Unwritten Book would have helped you do that a long time ago." Ohocelotzintli gave him a defiant look before kicking the rope-ladder down.

"I did accept it. Just don't go thinking that will keep me from fighting it's application down to my very last shred of sanity," he retorted before going down.

When Andrea looked up, her eyes crossed Huehuenpol's before he disappeared from sight. He nodded at her. Eztepoztli noticed and panicked. _Oh no... He hasn't..._

"Chicömic! Mäcuillic! Seize him!"

A black-colored lizard, otherwise identical to Ähuïleh Agumon, and a pink bird rushed to await Gazimon at ground level. Andrea stood up.

"NO YOU DON'T!" Everyone froze for a second and Sepikmon panicked even more. Andrea walked to the banister and pointed an accusing finger at the leading digimon. "I am not letting you kill him when it's the only thing you've ever been able to do with your life! Lies are no reason to kill people!"

"How dare you!" Tönalmicqui suffocated.

"I dare because he needs help, and I'm not letting anybody kill him before I've been able to help him!"

The angry answer wiped her confidence.

"Get them!"

Andrea hurried to the rope-ladder. The pink bird looked up at her and...

"Magical fire!"

...launched a spiral of greenish energy from its beak. Andrea eeped and hurriedly ducked away as parts of the engine's shell were blown to charred bits.

"Pepper breath!"

"Goblin fire!"

"Flame hit!"

A long beam of fire and two smaller fireballs shot overhead and hit the wooden structure.

"They're trying to take the nehnemini down! Derek, Clockmon, put the fires out! I'm handling sunburns here." Sepikmon seemed to be in a familiar element. Andrea watched in amazement as he ran forward and front-flipped over the banister.

"Magical fire!"

Another attack blasted parts of the board. She looked down to see Huehuenpol fighting to climb back up while the two grounded digimon shook the ladder and aimed their attacks at him. She let her instincts take over and jumped down. Her fall was broken by a feathery body sprawling out in unconsciousness under her weight. When she opened her eyes, the black Agumon was gathering fire in his open muzzle.

"Pepper br..." The call was abruptly interrupted as Huehuenpol Gazimon thumped down on his head, taking (or rather crushing) his lights out. Andrea glowered at him.

"You knew all along, didn't you?"

"Well, I did mention 'minimal resistance'..."

"Oh, for the love of..."

* * *

Clockmon watched the burgeoning blaze, unsure of what he should do. 

"Goblin fire!"

The digimon's hammer moved too quickly for the eye to follow and the incoming attack dissipated.

"I'm handling it, Clockmon!" Derek interrupted his train of though. He grabbed his D-Coder and pressed a few controls. "Data hack, activate!" he announced. The device produced a bright flash of light and a symbol floated in the air. "The Sinuous River!"

"Proceeding to encode," a mechanical voice continued. "Now implementing..." The symbol was kind of sucked down by Clockmon. "Water cannon." Parts of his front mechanic opened and a metallic tube slowly slid out. He turned back toward the fire and sent a blast of water, turning the fire into a less threatening steamy inferno.

"Goblin bomb!" The attack was intercepted by another blast of liquid. That flew on and flung the green-skinned digimon into a tree. With a painful moan, it slumped to the ground.

"Somebody else needs a shower?"

* * *

"Feather slash!" 

Gazimon tackled Andrea before she could end her sentence. A whirling projectile buzzed over them in a curving tangent, narrowly missing her. When she jumped back to her feet, she noticed, or rather did not notice a familiar weight on her back. She found the solution at her feet. Her braid was lying on the ground like a vulgar piece of string. Something snapped in the woman. With a yell of pure rage she ran up to the white and brown bird that had just caught back the returning projectile. Her leg raised of its own accord and her ankle violently collided with the side of his head, sending him cartwheeling to the ground. She looked down at him.

"Never touch a woman's hairdo without her permission."

"Pepper breath!"

"Allergy shower!"

"Stamen rope!"

Watching Huehuenpol Gazimon rumble was very instructive. He never actually dodged attacks. Rather, he simply never stood where they hit, preferring to leave that position to an opponent. This "strategic retreat" left most of the brute work to be performed by the opponents. He walked back to Andrea, leaving the three badly shaped digimon lying on the ground.

"Thank you."

"You had planned for all of this, hadn't you?" she asked him.

"Plans? I don't do plans. If I did, that would mean I know what's going to happen, and I'd rather avoid it, or have it happen to someone else, now, wouldn't I?" Andrea rolled her eyes.

"Somehow that doesn't quite reassure me."

* * *

"Flare tower!" 

The raging column of fire zoomed toward Sepikmon as soon as he landed, and he only avoided it by rolling aside in the same movement. His hand reached to his sword in the middle of the roll and the weapon moved seamlessly to his side, sending forward a wave of white energy.

"Spirit boomerang!"

He glanced around himself. There was no trace of the great priest. _Not good._ He stood back up quickly.

"Flame hit!"

The attack came as a rain of fire from above. Sepikmon managed to deflect some of the fireballs, but they were followed by a fiery silhouette that crashed onto him. He landed on his back, his opponent kneeling across his chest. Flarelizamon raised his hands above his head.

"Flare tower!"

But Eztepoztli reacted more rapidly, kicking the digimon in the back with both knees. The unaimed attack destroyed a patch of trees. His face protected by his mask (but his chest becoming dangerously hot), he head butted his opponent in the stomach, catching him with the pointy end. Using the leverage, he projected Flarelizamon forward. Tönalmicqui landed back on his feet with a slight wince of pain, then shot his joint hands toward the concentrating Sepikmon.

"Flare tower!"

"Charming dance!"

Sepikmon avoided the attack with an unnatural grace, spinning on himself with his arms widespread.

"Flame hit!"

The blast shot toward the spinning digimon, but Eztepoztli's sword hit the ground and he somehow turned horizontal for several seconds in a move Andrea would only have believed if it had come up in a really good martial arts movie. The fire stream went under him and flew between the legs of the walker. Then two bright flashes shot from Sepikmon's hands and hit the priest straight in the chest. Bracing against the attack, he went back several feet, his claws digging tracks into the road, but stood up.

Eztepoztli's sword shot out to reestablish him on his feet on the other side of his opponent in a long, gracious move. Somehow his weapon had reached a brandishing position in the meantime.

"Spirit boomerang!"

This time the sword was launched, spinning and encased in energy, at the unexpecting opponent and hit him across the back, bouncing as if it had only been a large book. The attack knocked Flarelizamon violently off his feet and sent him sprawling to the ground, unconscious.

"Oh... my... You didn't...?" Andrea started.

"Obviously not," Sepikmon answered. "But that is probably going to leave a mark," he added as he caught his sword. Andrea took in a long-winded breath. She had really needed to blow off some steam.

"That did some good."

"Speak for yourself," a voice commented. Its owner was obviously not in a very good shape. He actually sounded like he had received a piano on the head, even though it was truly Gazimon. A loud bop in Andrea's back was followed by the sound of a slumping body. When she turned around, Gazimon was twirling his stick innocently.

"That was uncalled for, you know," she scowled as she dragged the unconscious body to the side of the road. Gazimon stared at her.

"He tried to kill you," he pointed out.

"That's no reason to use more violence than necessary."

Gazimon rolled his eyes and took advantage that she was looking elsewhere to use the Piyomon as a footboard to climb on the rope ladder.

* * *

The rest of the journey went on much more smoothly. Andrea had a hard time absorbing the idea that she'd have to grow back her hair, though. She'd been keeping the same braid for over two years and all these efforts had been destroyed in the span of a few seconds. For the time being, she had decided to keep her hair as is. 

Eventually, the forest became sparser and started to gave way to houses and gardens. Soon they were out in the middle of the large crop fields that surrounded Ahuamoloyan. At this point, the road was more solid and the walker moved much less dust than it had done for most of the way, so Andrea took off her protective mask. The goggles were useful, but looked ridiculous on her.

Small crowds of digimon even smaller than those she had seen so far gathered along the road, chirping indistinct conversations. She assumed these were children. She turned to Gazimon who immediately took on her question.

"These are baby II level digimon," he said, without helping. She frowned at him. "Hey, it's not my fault if that's the correct term! Digimon are born from their digieggs at baby I level. After a few months, they evolve into baby II, who usually evolve into child digimon by 3 years."

Andrea looked puzzled.

"Child level? I'd have though these to be more of the Child level." Huehuenpol seemed little appreciative of this comment.

"Child level like myself, or Tönalmicqui's dummies we met earlier. That's the way it's always worked. I'm afraid there's little sense to be made out of it, you know." He looked almost sheepish.

Andrea shook her head and settled her eyes on the settlement ahead. It wasn't nearly as big as Teocaltintlan, but it seemed to be a fairly large town. The street weren't buzzing with excitation like in Teocaltintlan, but she assumed it might have been because it wasn't a market day. Andrea waved hello to a few Digimon that had gone out on their doorstep to watch them. In the meantime, Derek had gone back to fiddling with his D-Coder to try and locate the thief and was now grumbling curses.

"I can't locate it! It's too close, my maps' resolutions aren't high enough!"

Fuming with exasperation, he switched to a different mode that left only a large yellowish arrow floating in the air.

"That's the best I can do."

All eyes immediately followed the direction it pointed, up to a structure very similar to a roman _domus_ with several interior courtyards. The rooves were topped with large hippogriffs statues at the extremities. Gazimon's eyes widened.

"That's one page I hadn't managed to read," he commented.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Derek asked.

"That's the ithualli, the local court and the prefect's residence. Owlmon's fascination with technology is well-known, but I'm surprised our thief would be stupid enough to try and sell that thing to him."

As soon as he was done with these explanations, they disembarked and ran up to the construction. The antechamber was almost identical to that on the palace back in Teocaltintlan, except that the statue was that of a hippogriff in a battling stance. Sepikmon deposited his sword and another bit of malachite. Clockmon left his hammer as well as a small bit of hardware. When it was her turn, Andrea bowed, much like she had done back in the city of temples. Then she went to the wall and neatly rolled her cut braid in a niche. _That'll have to do for now._

When they walked out of the room, they found themselves in a courtyard paved with red and black puzzle-shaped pieces of stone. On each side, a long basin bordered the larger central area, separating the pavement and the areas shadowed by the peristyle. At the other end, a large owl with cybernetic legs and infrared vision apparatus over his face rested atop a golden and ornate perch. He immediately looked beyond the man in moulding wooden armour before him to report all his fascinated attention on the group, especially Derek.

"Derek," Andrea muttered, "you forgot to take off the goggles."

Derek's hand reached to remove the eye-widening protection and reveal his flustered face to the prefect. Andrea smirked noticing the round marks around his eyes.

"Tlaïxtotocani Musyamon! I knew you were ready to go far, but I didn't expect you to stoop that low!" Sepikmon yelled at the figure, who turned to better look at them, revealing a man with bluish skin clad in moulding ancient Japanese armour, moth-eaten fur and dirty bandages. A large metallic sword hung at his side. He clutched Andrea's former graphic tablet in his left hand. The prefect's cybernetic eyes focused on the masked digimon.

"What does this mean, Cohuatzintli?"

Sepikmon bowed, then spoke.

"It means that this device Musyamon is displaying here is not his, nor was it even ever. It is one of the Tlaïxahcicäittanimeh, the fabled D-Coders. To be precise, it is Tamikane Andrea's," Sepikmon rapidly explained, pointing to Andrea.

"Lies! All lies! I bought this in a very legitimate bazaar of Teocaltintlan!" Musyamon protested.

"You've never been known yourself for having an unfaltering conviction in truth," Sepikmon sardonically retorted.

Andrea's eyes went from one to the other as they exchanged accusations and insults ranging from sabotage and foul thinking to treason and first-degree murder. Owlmon looked too with a raising air of annoyance. He eventually took off and landed straight between the two digimon, wings wide open to separate them.

"I am very well aware of the old rivalry between you two already, thank you. The two great swordsmen of Axolotl, Eztepoztli and Tlaïxtotocani," He turned specifically at Sepikmon. "One of the Tlaïxahcicäittanimeh? It is a very grave accusation. And a hard to believe one too. Do you have any proofs?"

Just as Sepikmon was about to send his defiant answer, Derek tapped on his shoulder and they started whispering. Fortunately, the laws of narration being what they are, everybody heard the whispered dialogue very distinctly.

"What, we have proofs, right?"

"Actually, we don't. I have absolutely no idea how to prove it's hers," Derek answered. To Andrea's surprise, a large bead of sweat formed on the edge of Sepikmon's mask.

"What? Why didn't you tell me that first?" Andrea noticed a twitch in Eztepoztli's hair.

"As if you've left me the time."

"This is utterly preposterous!" Musyamon's hollow voice interrupted them. "I'm not going to accept being insulted like this again. I propose we settle this by a battle of marksmanship," before Sepikmon could answer, he added, "whoever wins gets to keep the Tlaïxahcicäittani, or whatever it is."

Before Sepikmon could answer, Gazimon tugged on his briefs to get his attention. For a very short and horrible moment, Andrea wondered what it was made of again. Fortunately, the human mind has a very ancient tactic to overcome these kinds of problems. It ignored the issue.

"Eztepoztli, I abjure you not accept," Gazimon said. Andrea noticed the worry and uneasiness in his stance. Sepikmon, however, unceremoniously slapped his hand away. The grey digimon's ears and head drooped.

"What's with the sudden familiarity? We didn't save your all-seeing ass just so you could get in the way of our mission, you know! Besides, you said yourself he would give it up," he responded with anger.

Gazimon opened his mouth to explain his sudden outburst, but decided against, realizing he had no chances to convince Sepikmon anymore. Andrea wanted nothing more than to question Huehuenpol immediately, but that would have been horribly insulting to Eztepoztli, and disrespectful to everybody else. Eventually, her worries let her attention turn back to the discussion. Musyamon was talking, setting the conditions to the duel in short, chopped sentences.

"Very well then. This evening at sunset. At the entrance of the village. Owlmon will be the judge. He'll keep the wager in the meantime." He walked to the large bird and dropped the D-Coder in his extended wing, right under the obviously glowering eyes of Sepikmon.

"You're going to regret this," he warned the other swordsman.

"Don't count your eggs before they're hatched," Musyamon answered with a smirk that only increased Andrea's urge to question Gazimon.

When they came out of the antechamber, she grabbed his tail to slow him down, letting Derek and the adult digimons take the lead. For a few minutes they walked side by side like this, lagging behind without a word. Gazimon's stick dragged slightly on the ground. The scratching nagged at her brains. Finally, he spoke up.

"Come to the point. You want to know what that was about, right?" he said. She realized he wasn't actually using his precognitive abilities.

"Yes. I know you saw something that wasn't good."

"Actually, it's rather the opposite. I didn't saw anything. It looks like something is actively clouding my perception of everything related to Musyamon. I could see that Sepikmon would accept his challenge, but I could not predict the conditions Musyamon imposed, nor the outcome. I am very worried about him."

Andrea looked ahead. Her companion's worry was contagious.

* * *

_Is Gazimon right about being worried about the duel? What's up between Musyamon and Sepikmon, and why isn't Sepikmon worried about facing his greatest rival? What is chevon? Who's that guy with the shady moustaches? Answers and bad jokes in the next chapters: **Oc tlamichïhualonih in äyiliztli**_

**Wonderboy's guide to digital etiquette**  
Hey there! I'm filling in for Johnny, since he had to take a break (sounds of muffled cries of help). What does Eztepoztli means by "familiarities"? Well, he and Gazimon just met, so he's feeling really insulted that the child would call him by his nickname in front of both an adversary and a high-ranking official.

_Then why did he call Gazimon by his nickname earlier?_ Well, Sepikmon is far from an idiot, he quickly realized that "Ontlachiyani" was a nickname someone else gave Gazimon, and so had no reasons not to use it.

_And what about Santiramon?_ Well, Santiramon is the ruling lord of Axolotl node, obviously he can call and refer to people by their nicknames. You might notice both he and Owlmon used the term "Cohuatzintli". It is simply a term of address meaning "noble guest".

**Author's note**  
There, you got it! New material, new characters, new problems and so on. Let's just hope I can keep this up for the rest of the story...


	5. Tlamichihualonih oc in äyiliztli

**TLAMICHÏHUALONIH OC IN ÄYILIZTLI - Things left worth doing**

Huehuenpol Gazimon and Andrea lagged behind in the humid afternoon. Gazimon realized the woman had grown tired, both emotionally and physically. He approached the fountain erected in the middle of the place and sat on the basin's edge, the carved stone both cool and hot beyond his fur.

Andrea sat by his side mechanically. Her elbows somehow collided with her knees and her face burrowed behind her fingers. She produced a single sniff. Huehuenpol shook his head, leaned it backward and departed his thoughts. Something or someone kept him from perceiving the future. Intentionally or not, it clouded his perception. Everything beyond the duel was left in the complete dark to his prying mind and he didn't like that. He had grown used to certitude over the years. Was the future really that uncertain? He hoped he hadn't escaped the priests' fanaticism just to be slain by a near psychotic warrior.

He snapped his head back and settled his eyes on the back of his hand, his fingers still gripped around his faithful stick, his looks unfocused. He could feel each of his hairs, most of them floating in the occasional weak gust of wind, each of his muscles and bones. Damn, he felt alive. More alive than he'd felt for all these years. Too much alive.

Another memory went and vanished, sending a pang through his face. Ohocelotzintli. So Tönalmicqui knew. He snorted, causing Andrea to shift and moan slightly. They'd given him that name so he could be full of life. Full of the life he would be taking from others, as was his duty. Now he couldn't even bear thinking about it. He turned his eyes away from his claw fingers, not wanting to see the droplets of blood.

From the dark continent of his memories, his thoughts drifted back into the strait of Andrea and Sepikmon. He had landed both of them in a world of trouble. Not even Santiramon's will could abate the priests' anger now. No, he hadn't really sent them into trouble, had he? Andrea had. _Ah, but you helped her a bit along the way, didn't you?_ The though came and he batted it away like an annoying fly. That only made the matter worse as far as Sepikmon was concerned, of course. The swordsman was terribly angry at him, and with every right to be. He wouldn't forgive the child digimon anytime soon, but right now, it didn't matter. Right now, he had to guide Andrea, to keep her moving. If she stopped, she would collapse.

"Gazimon, Andrea! There you are," Derek's voice derailed his train of though.

He glanced at the sky and smiled. There were still things left worth to do. His stomach grumbled, causing Andrea to jump and look at him with wide, inattentive eyes. He smirked weakly and rubbed the back of his head.

"Ah, err exc..."

His excuses were interrupted by a much louder grumble coming from Andrea's belly. The woman clutched at her midsection with an arm. The sound froze Derek a few steps short of them.

"Oh I need to eat. Badly," the woman groaned.

"I could have told you that," the furred creature retorted. He jumped to his feet.

"We found a dinner where we can eat," Derek pointed off, "this way."

Andrea smiled and got up after the digimon and Derek. Gazimon's face darkened.

"Damn, that's the Geckomons' dinner. I hate tamalcecëc," he moaned. Derek grinned.

"Well, I suppose that's Sepikmon's payback for using him as defence," he suggested.

"Bah!"

Gazimon remained silent as they walked in the abandoned street. The occasional bit of conversation floating to them through an open door or window. The opposite would have been surprising considering that traditional architecture in Axolotl did not involve closing doors or windows.

They reached a building slightly larger than the others. A staircase lead to a terrace roof with set tables and consumers busy eating and talking. Andrea noticed the furniture was of wood instead of stone, and that gave her a renewed sense of normalcy. That was smashed when she took a look at the parchment-written menu. The multicoloured glyphs meant absolutely nothing to her.

"Sorry guys, I can't read Atlahtolli," she pointed out.

"Oh. I'll take command for you, okay?" Gazimon proposed.

"Thanks."

"Are the Cöcohuatzin ready?"

Andrea goggled at the small creature that was the waiter. It was a humanoid green frog with glistening skin. His overly large eyes made it seem like the digimon was on a permanent sugar high. Andrea wasn't sure what was the most disturbing: the shirtfront hanging on his thin chest or the large bugle sprouting from his neck.

"Erm, yes," Sepikmon said. "I'll have 2 möltamalli and beer. Clockmon and Derek will have xocotamalli and chocolatl."

As he talked, the Geckomon produced a few notes with his bugle, instead of scribbling them down like Andrea would have expected.

"Yacacolnacatamalli and maguey juice for me. Ahcamatetelquïc tamalli and water for her," Gazimon continued. The Geckomon hesitated for a moment, as if expecting his furred counterpart had made a mistake, but eventually sent the musical order, than walked away to greet new customers.

"What did you take?" Andrea asked Gazimon.

"Bland tamalli. You should like them. I think they use chevon here," Andrea nodded. At least she knew what it was. Clockmon and Derek obviously had no idea what they had ordered and appeared not to want to ask.

Sepikmon was talking with Derek and Clockmon about some sort of defence the latter had apparently set up in some place he kept spelling the name. The masked digimon was pointedly ignoring Gazimon's comments and she couldn't blame him for it, though she felt sorry for the little guy. Huehuenpol settled for toying with his stick, knocking the ground lightly in musical patterns.

I don't get him, she reflected. He's constantly bursting away at people little a crazy bumblebee. He keeps contradicting others and seems to take pleasure in it, yet he moves around with that stick he doesn't need. Like he's looking for support. _No. Like he's dead._ He moves around as if he was already dead.

"Why are you dead?" The question whispered straight in his ear startled Gazimon. He would have fallen off the chair hadn't Andrea caught his arm.

"What?" he looked at her in fear.

"Why are you dead?" she repeated softly.

Gazimon's mouth gaped. Then he closed his eyes and let out a desperate sigh. There was no way out of this one.

"Well, some would say I've been graced with the gift of knowing the past and the future. In truth, it's really a curse. You see, I can't really react to anything anymore. You follow me?"

"Uh uh." Obviously you couldn't react to things if you always knew about them beforehand. She got that.

At this point the Geckomon came back with an immense plate divided in five parts, each filled with two or three sheets of paste wrapped in small round mounds. Derek and Clockmon looked around for cutlery, but did not find any. The native digimon lunged at the dishes. Andrea was more careful, having once burned herself with hot tamales in Mexico, but the dish was apparently served lukewarm here. She took a bite and fire burned her mouth. She immediately gulped half her glass of water. The meal might not have been hot, but it was terribly spicy. Sepikmon chuckled.

"It's not even got enough cuechtic tëpanahuihqui to call it seasoning," he mocked her. She glared back. "Now, _that_'s more like it," he added, approaching his own tamale from her face.

It was filled with a molass-like meat stew. Her nose hair started to curl and her eyes to tear up when the smell reached her. She held her breath, not sure she wanted to test the effects on her lungs. Then a drop of blood fell on the table. She immediately put her finger to her nose to stop the flow, Sepikmon returned the tamale behind his mask.

"It does that to some people," Gazimon commented with a mouth full of his own red-colored tamale. "There's barely a pinch of dried tëpanahuihqueh in the whole serving." He motioned toward the two portions left in her plate section. "During the ceremonies, we had to eat whole dried ones." Andrea winced.

"That sounds painful," Sepikmon said with an obvious tint of joy that got him a glare from Andrea.

"It was. We never really recovered our sense of taste. Actually, I think it was a preparation to later... rites." Andrea recalled the little she new about Aztec religion and felt like someone had given her pharynx a full twist.

"Please! We're eating!" Clockmon pleaded, disgust painted all over his greenish face. Even the eye of his mechanical lower part carried the emotion.

Gazimon looked down, still munching as if nothing had happened.

"Sorry."

Andrea took another tentative bit and had to finish her glass of water, which didn't really help. She looked around for assistance. Gazimon edged his glass toward her.

She took a gulp that managed to calm her burning taste buds. The juice was an off-white thick, sweet-scented liquid that coated her mouth and throat.

"Thanks."

"My pleasure," Huehuenpol nodded.

"You were talking about reacting..." Andrea trailed. Gazimon cursed himself for allowing the subject to re-emerge.

"You see, what doesn't react, doesn't learn, and what doesn't learn, doesn't grow... Doesn't really... live."

Andrea swallowed. The taste seemed to claw less and less at her mouth as she ate.

"That sounds horrible."

"I've had years to learn how to cope with it," he simply stated.

"How?"

"By helping people to be more alive." His eyes widened as he completed his sentence. He crammed the rest of his tamale in his mouth, hoping to avoid further questions.

"You help them react you mean?" Andrea asked with an equal tone. Sepikmon now seemed to take a strong interest in the discussion, but Gazimon wanted to club himself with his own stick.

"MmMMmh," he mumbled with his mouth full. Sepikmon cocked his head, finished his food and rubbed his hands together to clean them.

"Like you 'helped' me?" Andrea persisted, her face still showing no expression. Gazimon's neck notably widened as he swallowed with a loud gulp. It felt as if his Adam's apple had been in the way.

"You could say that."

"You manipulated me."

"No I didn't." He cursed life, the universe and everything. That was what really made life as a precognitive difficult. People always reacted like this, even when he didn't actually use his abilities. That had been one of the reasons he'd moved into the mountain. Of course, the fact the place was far away from the killers sent by the priests had played no little role in his decision.

"You little foul piece of fur."

Gazimon closed his eyes, knowing what came next. Andrea was infuriated at that and splashed the glass of juice in his face. She then got up and stormed down the stairs and away from the restaurant under most of the patrons' curious looks.

Andrea stomped down the street, attracting the attention of the occasional late afternoon walker. She reached the edge of the village, where the forest still battled with crops she couldn't name. She extended her arms and yelled her anger for the entire universe to hear. Her leg kicked a branch, sending it flying into the bushes. Then she slumped and sat down, but the emotions stirring her guts wouldn't leave her steady. She stood up and punched wildly in the air in a random kata.

"I think you need anger management therapy," a voice behind her calmly said.

She stopped moving, her head throbbing.

"Get lost."

"There there. It's that bad, isn't it?" He couldn't help it, he chuckled. "You're so much like him. Such a horrible actress. And you let everything well inside. Wouldn't like to see what you'd have done if you'd stayed."

Andrea slumped down on a well-placed stump and grumbled.

"His life was at stake, I can't really blame him yet I do. I can't help myself and it's more infuriating than that he could use me. I mean, I know it since we met the priests earlier, but it's a whole different thing to have it slapped in your face! It's that whole "coping" thing. It's just... Raargh!"

"I think the word is 'unbearable'."

He knelt down to look at her.

"He's not as bad as you'd like to believe. I don't think he faked that nervous breakdown on the road. And, besides, I think you'd have helped him anyway. Either you or Sepikmon," the man explained.

Andrea gave a sigh full of unreleased anger.

"Pollen shower!"

"What's..." Andrea started as they were surrounded by a shimmering golden cloud. Then she fell over to the ground, her eyes closed in a dreamless sleep before her head reached something solid.

Two plants with flowers for heads and hands walked out of the underbrush. Shades covering both creatures' eyes. A large cream and red peacock-like bird appeared shortly after. He took Andrea's head in his hand and examined her.

"Hmm... Interesting..." He turned carelessly to the two plants. "Get them to the camp."

* * *

"You had it coming," Sepikmon stated, Gazimon could tell by his tone that he was smiling. 

"Wasn't careful enough," Gazimon answered behind the small towel a Geckomon was pressing at his face. Sepikmon shook his head

"Don't ever tell her that. She'll clobber you." The Geckomon finished drying the small digimon's face and pulled the towel away before it stuck.

"Hey, give me some credit here, will you?" He looked around the table. "Where did the other went?"

"After her," Clockmon said simply.

Gazimon bonked his head down on the table. _Damn. I messed up big time._ Then the thing sprung up in his mind, clear as water, and he snapped back up. Unfortunately for drama, it took him two attempts to pry the table cloth off his sticky face.

"What now?" Sepikmon asked, his voice dripping with annoyance.

"They're going to get attacked!"

Sepikmon got up stiffly, causing his chair to fall backward in the process and earning the group a few more curious glares. He shuffled to get a few golden pieces of various sizes that he threw on the table. Then he took off after Clockmon and Gazimon, who hadn't waited for him. He hoped to be in time, but Gazimon's worry was not a good sign, if it was real at all.

They reached the edge of the village. A faint golden powder finished dispersing in the wind. It made Gazimon slightly drowsy. He yelled and kicked at the stump in a small explosion of splinters.

"Where are they? What happened?" Sepikmon yelled at the child digimon.

Still shaken, Gazimon sat down much like Andrea had done a few minutes ago.

"Two Floramon. They wore shades. And another digimon. A champion. I couldn't see him well." His tone lowered to a whisper as he spoke.

Sepikmon's massive hand grabbed Huehuenpol around the midsection and raised him too close to the mask for comfort.

"If anything happens to her, I swear I'm hanging your hide off the ceiling of my bedroom," he growled. Gazimon tried to wriggle out of his gripe.

"Calm down!" Clockmon put one of his mechanical hands on his arm, forcing it down.

"Remember the prophecy. 'She _will_ stream out,'" he reminded the masked digimon. Eztepoztli dropped Gazimon unceremoniously.

"Well, what do we do now?"

"I don't know. For the love of Qinglongmon, I _can't_ know!" he yelled back. "I can't even tell if there's going to be anything to tell anymore! I'm clouded completely from anything but the closest future!"

The other two just stared blankly at this outburst. Then Sepikmon threw his sword to the ground, where the blade sunk a good feet deep, and his arms up in despair.

"Well, that's convenient! How are we supposed to rescue them and get the D-coder back, now?" he asked.

Gazimon joined his hands over his knees, looking down.

"You need to go through that duel. No matter what we do now, you can't escape it. If there's a future to be, it goes through Tlaïxtotocani. Besides, I don't think you want to have to steal the D-Coder from Owlmon."

His stance full of worry, Sepikmon looked at the forest again. Whoever had come here was talented. They'd managed to get Andrea and Derek away without leaving so much as a disturbed leaf.

"The sun is setting, we better get there," the warrior said. He made sure to shower the smaller digimon with dirt when he pulled out his sword, then spun around and walked toward the main road. Gazimon patted the earth off himself and followed him. Then a large landed on his shoulder and dangled him off the ground. Gazimon saw the world move around him, then cold metal under his cheeks. Clockmon's voice came from his left.

"That's going to make matter simpler."

Gazimon smiled weakly. He hoped with all his might that the large machine digimon was right.

* * *

_What do these shade-wearing digimon want with Andrea and Derek? What's going on with Sepikmon and Musyamon's duel? Why can't Gazimon perceive future events anymore? Get your answers while they're fresh in chapter 6: **Äxcan tëotlc tzintizquia ilhuitl**_. 

**Johnny's culinary trivia**  
So, what was in that order? Well, mostly, various sorts of tamales. That is, corn paste wrapped around various stuffings, often served with an aditionnal layer of corn leaves. The Geckomon serve them by three and wrapped in round mounds. In Axolotl, all _tamalli_ are usually spiced more or less generously with _cuechtic tëpanahuihqui_ (Powder of the peppers Andrea saw back in chapter 2), even "bland" ones, like Andrea's. _Chevon_ is goat meat.

Derek and Clockmon didn't have that problem, since Sepikmon ordered fruits tamalli for them. Fortunately, the _chocolatl_ drunk in Axolotl isn't made in the same manner as the ancient Aztec's. Gazimon, for his part, ordered regular meat tamales, but amaranth and corn ones instead of just corn, they are actually a bit more spicy than Sepikmon's _möltamalli_.

**Author's note**  
I'm afraid this is a bit different than I originaly meant. I must say the chapter kinda... evolved on it's own. I wanted to try a different PoV, and it kind of... grew by itself into a character vignette. I think I develloped too much material around Gazimon beforehand. Oh well, that's it for now.


	6. Tzintizquia ilhuitl äxcan tëotlac

(Circeus)

This took waaaay too long to write up, and you know it!

(Jean-Seb)

Shut up! We busied ourselves with over twelve thousands words worth of Songhai Diaries, in case you forgot! Besides, it's Johnny's job to make sure we have a plot!

(Johnny, to Circeus)

Conk him.

(Continues as Circeus mallets Jean-Seb in the background)

At any rate, we do not own the Digimon franchise, as much as we'd like to. Take things from our work and face our collective wrath. Big credits and kudos go to **JJriddler**, **Shirubie** and **Radagast**.

**TZINTIZQUIA IN ILHUITL ÄXCAN TEÖTLAC - Tomorrow started tonight**

The three digimon walked across the village, back to where the main street became the main road. The sky slowly turned ablaze as the ceremonious apparel got settled. Torches had been set in a rough circle, each of them held by a child digimon. Musyamon sat cross-legged at the other end of the arena thus defined, his sword laid down before him. He did not look up when they arrived.

The other swordsman did react when the sound of rumbling drums rose from the village. The bass drumsticks where held high between hits by a Gazimon and a Palmon. Musyamon stood, leaving his sword on the ground, as a figure set in a sedan chair slowly emerged from the darkness. Four Hawkmon carried it, bracketed by two taller adult digimon. One was another Sepikmon, the second was a Butterflymon. Both wore shades. A last digimon walked in front of this small procession: an Agumon carrying Andrea's D-Coder on a cushion. The various walkers took their respective places as in a miniature court between the two fighters. Owlmon stood up, causing the chair to wobble dangerously. Once the platform was steadied, he spread his arms pompously.

"We are here on this evening," he said ",because Eztepoztli Sepikmon and Tlaïxtotocani Musyamon have decided to settle the dispute on the ownership of this device by way of a battle of marksmanship. It has been decided that the sword shall be the only weapon used, in addition to any natural abilities of the fighter."

Musyamon and Sepikmon nodded at this recital and the setting of the rules.

"Fighters, get ready..." Owlmon announced.

The two swordsmen stepped into the ring. Sepikmon brought his sword in front of him and held it at an angle, ready for anything. Musyamon did not even bother with taking his own.

"I sure hope he knows what he's doing," Gazimon muttered from Clockmon's shoulder.

"Fight!"

Sepikmon's knees flexed and he hurled himself at his opponent. Musyamon reacted at the last moment, sidestepping the slash. His opponent reacted in a split second and redirected the blow for his enemy's back, but the armoured humanoid leaned forward to put his hand on the ground, the armour deviating the sword. Musyamon cartwheeled over his hand as Sepikmon continued on his momentum and spun away from him. When Musyamon landed back on his feet, he had his sword in hand, having picked it up with the hand that was not on the ground. He immediately attacked.

"White Bird Sword!"

A slash of the weapon created a violent blast of wind Sepikmon merely jumped over. The stray attack blew two torches off into the darkness of the setting night as their holders were knocked down. Musyamon gave a cocky grin.

"That wasn't too bad."

Musyamon swung his sword one-handed and tried to punch Sepikmon with the other while the other was distracted, but the masked adult deviated the blow by turning his head and jumped away from him. A light flashed at his opponent's wrist an a pair of blades made from bright light extended over his hand, illuminating the battle over the torches. Sepikmon did not look phased at this change in situation and charged.

"Foul! This has nothing to do with any natural abilities Musyamon ever displayed!" Gazimon loudly protested, pointing at the two fighters.

"I see no more foul in this than in your own specific powers," Owlmon retorted emotionlessly.

"My... own..." Gazimon whispered.

With amazing speed, Sepikmon ran up to the other digimon and swiped at him. Musyamon parried with his new weapon and the ensuing exchange was so rapid that the only hint to the weapons meeting was the sharp metallic sound of their collision. The two blades at Musyamon's left hand created large arcs of shining light as the arm moved around. Then a flash exploded in red and Sepikmon yelled out in pain. The two swordsmen froze for an instant. The spectator were able to see the two shimmering white claws piercing through Sepikmon's side. His masked face twitched as he apparently looked down at the wound. Musyamon allowed him a glance before ripping his hand away. Blood splattered the ground when Sepikmon hurriedly jumped away from his opponent. Musyamon struck a pose with his arm raised high in the air.

"The slivers!" he called out in triumph. He twirled around to face Gazimon and Clockmon. "Behind special powers and behind legends, we always find a cause. Writers of legends, the Digital Glyphs. Ever heard about the blade tree?"

The child looked at the swordsman blankly. Behind Musyamon, Sepikmon was prostrated on the ground with an arm pressed against his wound, in shock.

"So this is why I couldn't know how this would end!" the child digimon exclaimed.

"Stories told of a tree in the forest, the Tënätic Cuahuitl, with leaves like blades and bark like sandpaper," Musyamon continued without paying him any attention, "but nobody ever wondered how this could be. It takes a lot of energy to unleash a glyph, and the Tlaïxahcicäittani does just that, now the Slivers' power is entirely mine!"

With another flash of light, the two long curved claws extending from his wrist merged in a longer one duplicating the sword he held in his other hand.

"Cheap trick..." a voice said weakly behind him.

Sepikmon had gotten up shakily, blood still dropping from his wound. With a yell of contained rage, Musyamon raised both arms over his head and crossed the blades in giant, lethal scissors. Turning around, he charged his opponent with the lowered twin weapon. Sepikmon stopped the assault with his own sword blocking the two opposing ones where they met. Still, the brute force from the attack shoved him back.

"Theatrics," he spurted, and proceeded to kick his opponent violently in the gut.

Musyamon was forced on his back with a painful groan. He rolled to the side just in time to avoid a vicious slash that separated his left spaulder and sent it flying. He shook his head as he jumped to his feet, throwing glistening drops of sweat in the air.

"He's overexerting himself, he can't control it..." Gazimon murmured.

"What do you mean?" Clockmon asked, looking away from the battle.

"If he keeps going on like this, he's going to burn up all his energy. Keeping a glyph active like that takes up a lot of it."

"So why don't you...?" the adult pointed out.

"You fool! I only use a fraction of its power and it's been enough to keep me from evolving all these years!" Gazimon said angrily.

As they looked back to the fight, Musyamon groaned loudly. The shimmering blade replacing his hand nearly doubled in length, spearing through Sepikmon's left shoulder. The masked adult grinned and violently hit the blade with his sword. The added leverage from the blade's length caused Musyamon to spin and fall down, gasping for air.

"You can feel it, can't you? Your energy, your power draining away," Sepikmon spoke to him. "A rogue fighter, a thorn in the side of the world, that's all you've ever been," he spat out.

Musyamon slowly got up and attempted a weak swipe at him.

"But you're too arrogant to give it up. It's like you can control the entire world, isn't it?"

Musyamon shook his head and smirked.

"Yes," he hissed in a low tone.

"I've got bad news for you," Sepikmon announced. "You are _not_ up to it."

With a roar, Musyamon brandished his blade over his head and lurched forward. Sepikmon dropped his sword as his anger-blinded enemy charged, pulled his fist back and punched him in the face. The blow shoved and sent the armoured swordsman flying back. As he sailed through the air, his form flickered and flashed, and a symbol similar in design but different in shape from the one Derek had used on Clockmon separated from his body, leaving it much smaller. The glyph spun in mid air for a split second before balling up and flying straight to Andrea's D-Coder. The Agumon dropped the cushion in fear from the apparent attack, eliciting panicked cries from both Clockmon and Owlmon. Sepikmon approached the prostrate form that had been Musyamon. He now looked like a green imp wearing ragged and tattered leather clothes with a spike of orange hair atop his head. The Goburimon moaned when the winner poked him with his foot.

"Ready to lose it all for such little things..." the adult said, shaking his head.

At this point, the blood loss he had experienced caught up with the adult. He collapsed with a sigh. Clockmon and Gazimon hurried to his side.

"Damn! We must get him to a doctor!"

A few throaty sounds escaped from Sepikmon. Gazimon's hear twitched, catching on the lying digimon's garble.

"What is he saying?" Clockmon asked.

"'Can you see now?'" the rabbit repeated softly.

Sepikmon's head rolled to the side and he finally fainted, having found the time to have a meeting with pain. Gazimon turned away, unable to look at the wounded swordsman. Despite his guilt, he felt himself tugged into darkness as he tried to open his mind to the future, discovering it to feel like a pile of boxes, as a new one opened. Random images of arguments to come made him wince, but there was no trace of Andrea or Derek. For some reason Owlmon's image seemed to tower over the next few days.

"I think we are going to run into another glyph," he said.

"What makes you _think_ that?" Clockmon asked, busy with ripping a makeshift bandage from his robe.

"I still can't see beyond tomorrow," Clockmon gave him a short annoyed glance, "I think the glyphs affect each others when they are not controlled by the same individual. I think I cannot see what happen whenever a glyph is involved."

"Oh motherboards..." Clockmon cursed when blood sprayed forth from the wound. He looked up to yell at Owlmon for help, but the bird, along with most of his suite, had disappeared into the darkness. "Where'd he go!"

"Back to the palace, I suppose. I think he wants to try and keep the D-Coder anyway," Gazimon posited.

Clockmon cursed loudly.

* * *

Andrea awoke angry and in pain, usually not a recommended combination. Not recommended for anyone around her, that is. Whoever was drilling holes into her head was so going to get their ass kicked. _Mental note: Next time, bring aspirin._

"Who's using the sledgehammer?" she asked.

Her ears perceived cracking and rustling sounds, and the occasional crashing. She was probably in some sort of cart. Whatever it was, it did not have much in the way of suspension. Each time her head was dangled or shoved around it was as if a boulder crashed on it.

"Err... Nobody," the answer somehow carried through that acoustic carnage. She recognized Derek's voice.

"Damn, 't's my head." She got up from the man's lap and tried to calm the elephants running all over her skull, only to press a painful lump on her forehead. She pulled her hand away with a wince, her eyes still shut.

"I think you hit your head on the tree stump when you fell."

"Where are we?" for some reason, she couldn't think of anything else to ask.

Opening her eyes, she looked around slowly, trying not to elicit more pain.

"In a cart, in the middle of the forest." She rolled her eyes. People who answered questions identified by their quality of being questions tended to get hit harder by life. And by Andrea. But right now she desired nothing more than to hit the idiot pressing a cheese grinder against her brain cells.

The woman caught sight of a dozen or so digimon, not all of them conscious, sprawled across the metallic cage or propped against the metal bars. Several of them wore various restraining devices. A few looked identical to those she had seen before. She cursed and looked outside. Small blue dragons in cybernetic military gear escorted the cart and it was pulled by... _unicorn_s? Her eyes closed of their own accord, a feeble attempt at shielding her sanity. Of course, life would not have it and her head it the floor before she could realize that the man had moved away, taking her cushioning with him. Pain flared again through her head and she moaned painfully.

"Can you just stay put?" she growled. Her hand reached out and latched at his tie. The man choked briefly as Andrea kept him from moving and, incidentally, breathing. Another throb flashed through her mind when someone shouted in front of the group.

"Will you speed up a little? We need to set up a data stream to Http before the night!" the speaker looked like a large white and red rooster. He worried rightly, considering that darkness was falling quite rapidly. Derek shuffled away from her again and Andrea noticed she had dropped his tie to grab at her own head.

"I'm trying to have us escape now," the man whispered to her, "Now that you're awake I can kick the plan into work."

"My head hurts too much for escaping," Andrea moaned in response.

It is a cruel world that does not react to a migrainous woman's pleas. Completely ignoring her protests, Derek whipped out his D-Coder and activated a few controls. The woman sighed with annoyance and scrambled around the cart to wake up the few digimons that were still not awake. As she moved to shake a small lizard by the shoulder, the large cuffs that completely covered his hands and a metallic helmet fell off his frame. He looked up at her in surprise. She blinked back. One of the cyber-soldier digimon yelled, and it resonated in her ears like the gong of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

"We have a wild one, we have a wild one!"

"Andrea, get in the corner!" Derek desperately called out to her. "Data hack activate! The Sudden Growth!"

The two successive cries splattered pain through the woman's skull like wet magenta paint. She was briefly blinded when a ray of light shot past her and into the creature. It glowed briefly and, in a spurt that violently shoved Andrea across the cage, its size tripled. More lights flashed before her eyes and she thought her skull would split open. Yells came from every side, overwhelming her senses, then the sound of tortured metal covered everything for a short moment. Andrea opened her eyes again and somehow correctly assessed that chaos had taken over the small caravan.

The blue lizard with two fleshy horn-like appendages on its head now reached well over 2 dozen feet. His growth spurt had broken through the foliage, causing leaves and branches to fall everywhere. Small soldiers and digimon ran all over the place, attacking each others. Andrea jumped from the cart to find cover from the stray attacks, but the large lizard brought his foot down on a soldier dragon, causing a small, localized shockwave that knocked the woman back to the ground. A flurry of butterflies escaped toward the forest and dissolved in mid-air. She heard someone yell her name. A rain of flaming feathers suddenly showered the newly grown lizard, then the rooster creature slammed into his chest sending him crashing into a large tree.

"Capture the humans, do no harm them!" the bird ordered.

The disorganized, but obviously well trained soldiers immediately stopped chasing the various digimon and spread out to circle around the most obvious target: Andrea. She didn't see Derek anywhere. She mentally summed the situation: her brains had escaped on unlimited vacation, she was angry and she was afflicted with the mother of all headaches. She was a bomb waiting to explode.

"Vee Punch!" The rooster flew back and crashed in the forest somewhere in the background.

"Now, miss, just calm down and nothing bad's gonna happen,'kay?" one of the midgets with assault guns said, approaching her with a set of shackles.

The women gave a grin that would have made any half-competent psychiatrist cower in fear. The soldier digimon simply continued to walk toward her, cockily unaware of the impending catastrophe. Andrea continued to smile.

"Hello! My name is Andrea. Never call me 'miss'," she said with an overly cheery tone.

The soldier froze, surprised at the unexpected utterance. That was her cue. Andrea grabbed the soldier by the shoulders and, flipping over him, used the accumulated momentum to throw him over her head as she landed behind the group.

"M16 assassin!" another voice immediately yelled behind her.

Andrea jumped to the side and crouched, her right leg extended to the side while she spun around. The energy projectile sped past her to destination unknown.

"Commandramon, do not hurt her!" the rooster warned.

Andrea smiled. It was always a good sign if the adversary could not use the full extent of its abilities. The group rushed at her all at once...

"Vee kick!"

Only for two of them to get caught when the blue lizard kicked at them. The two dragons flew well out of sight with surprised yelps. The others stopped for a moment, then they attacked.

"I wanna play too! Flash blinder!" the woman exclaimed.

The first soldier's eyes met with her viciously extended index and middle fingers. It yelled in pain and covered his eyes with his paws.

"Knee kick!"

Her knee raised and slammed into another attacker's large muzzle. Blood spewed from its nostrils and it rolled to the ground, unconscious. A metallic feet swiped her legs from under her and she fell on her back. The Commandramon grabbed her right arm to restrain the crazy woman, but Andrea shoved his helmet backward with her left, revealing a large forehead. Her hand backed.

"Rodent bite!"

She extended two finger like curved claws and slammed the extended knuckles into her opponent's forehead. As he rolled to the ground, she noticed grenade-like bombs attached to the his belt and grabbed one, hoping to make good use of it. Unfortunately, it immediately began to sizzle and crackle.

"Uh oh..." Andrea sweatdropped.

She looked frantically around for a target to throw the deadly device at. The lizard and rooster where now grasping at each other. The bird's eyes flashed with red light. Her instincts took over. She threw the bomb at him.

"Petrif-"

The call was interrupted by a small deflagration as the bomb exploded between the fighter's heads. Both clutched at their faces with screeches of pain, the lizard stumbled blindly around and all the digimon present ran to avoid being crushed. A large caterpillar similar to the one Derek had tripped on back in Teocaltintlan, however, was unable to move away quick enough. The blinded lizard tripped over the cart and she saw it fall over as if in slow-motion. She sighed and gritted her teeth, knowing that would propel her headache to never-before-seen levels.

Running to the insect, she bent down mid-course, intending to roll and scoop the insect as she went by, but unfortunately tripped on an ill-placed root and fell right on top of it. They both yelled, Andrea's cry drowning the smaller creature's by far. The woman grabbed the insect and made to roll away. As she turned on her back, she saw the massive falling figure shrinking down in a blinking flash and returning to its original size. The blue meteor blasted all air from her lungs. The lizard looked like the happiest creature on that side of the globe, a goofy grin plastered on his scorched face as he looked up at her from his landing location.

"What a rush..." he mumbled.

"I'd guess so," she commented.

Andrea got up, both creatures roughly cradled into her arms. Her eyes quickly scanned the area, looking for any leftover soldiers, but the area was mostly calm now. She could still hear some of them running in the surrounding forest, but the sounds faded rapidly.

"What a... leverage..." the blue one continued.

"Uh...?" the woman muttered in confusion.

The creature's grin widened. Andrea realized she had been pressing both creatures against her chest all along. She flushed deep and her eyes narrowed with anger. She was about to throw the pervert away as far as possible when a small and underused part of her brain charged with gratitude management reminded the rest that he had kinda saved her life. The woman sighed annoyedly and threw him harshly over her shoulder like a potato bag. She heard Derek's voice calling for her again.

"You better be _very_ confused," she grumbled.

She glared at the other deeply flushing digimon before she ran in the general area where she had heard Derek.

"You. No comments."

* * *

_Oh my, isn't she a grumpy one today? I can't think of much more snappy questions at this point, but trust me, the characters have some, and not all of them gets answered in chapter 7: **Tlahtlaniliztli oncah zän ayac quinänquilih **_

**Johnny's linguistic trivia** You might remember me using the expression "ïnäl tomöztlayö", "beyond our tomorrows" back in chapter 3. Why then, isn't there anything even vaguely reminiscent of it in the title of this chapter, even though it also uses the word "tomorrow"? Well, "ilhuitl" does not mean actually "tomorrow", but rather "day", and by extension "birthday, holy day". It happens so that in Nahuatl, temporal expressions behave like locative expressions. You can _not_ use "möztla" as a subject any more than you could use "in my yard" as a subject in English. Obviously, "tomöztlayö" stretched it a bit already, but I needed to find something that would fit the form field!

I'll try to provide translation for most of the untranslated terms in the next installment.

**Author's note** To be frank, I'm not proud of this chapter. Obviously, I did not realize how much kidnapping Andrea and Derek would mess with the short term storyline. At least, you can be annoyed at me for writing a not so good chapter rather than just stopping writing the fic altogether. Besides, this lay-down gave me some time to work on _Songhai Diaries_, which I hope to start posting by the end of November.

Also it's been a long, long while since I saw any 02 episodes, much les the one with Musyamon, and I never saw more than a couple of Tamers, so if I missed completely on the attacks, I'd appreciate very much a heads up!


End file.
